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FROM THE
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THE GIFT OF
1891
Aj/AiL3ZQ ^/j.S^/./.qA.
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GERMANIC STUDIES
Vol. I. No. III.
THE INFLUENCE
OF
OLD NORSE LITERATURE
UPON
ENGLISH LITERATURE
CONRAD HJALMAR NORDBY
ThIe COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Macmillan Company, Agbnts
66 fifth avenue
I90I
Cornell University
Library
The original of this book is in
the Cornell University Library.
There are no known copyright restrictions in
the United States on the use of the text.
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013348036
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY GERMANIC STUDIES
Vol. I. No. III.
THE INFLUENCE
OF
OLD NORSE LITERATURE
UPON
ENGLISH' LITERATURE
CONRAD HJALMAR NORDBY
THE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS
The Macmillan Company, Agents
66 fifth avenue
I90I
T
^.\o^^7«*
PHESS OF
THE NEW ERA PRINTINC3 COMPANY,
LANCASTER, PA.
Deyr i6
deyja fraendr,
deyr sidlfr it sama ;
en orSstfrr
deyr aldrigi
hveim er sdr g<5San getr.
I/dvamdl, 75.
Cattle die,
kindred die,
we ours elves also die ;
but the fair fame
never dies
of him who has earned it.
Thorpe's Edda.
Ill
PREFATORY NOTE.
The present publication is the only literary work left by its
author. Unfortunately it lacks a few pages which, as his manu-
script shows, he intended to add, and it also failed to receive his
final revision. His friends have nevertheless deemed it expedi-
ent to publish the result of his studies conducted with so much
ardor, in order that some memorial of his life and work shovUd
remain for the wider public. To those acquainted with him, no
written ^vords can represent the charm of his personality or give
anything approaching an adequate impression of his ability and
strength of character.
Conrad Hjalmar Nordby was born September 20, 1867, at
Christiania, Norway. At the age of four he was brought to
New York, where he was educated in the public schools. He
was graduated from the College of the City of New York in
1886. From December of that year to June, 1893, he taught in
Grammar School No. 55, and in September, 1893, he was called
to his Alma Mater as Tutor in English. He was promoted to
the rank of Instructor in 1897, a position which he held at the
time of his death. He died in St. Luke's Hospital, October 28,
1900. In October, 1894, he began his studies in the School of
Philosophy of Columbia University, taking courses in Philosoph}-
and Education under Professor Nicholas Murray Butler, and in
Germanic Literatures and Germanic Philology under Profes-
sors Boyesen, William H. Carpenter and Calvin Thomas. It
was under the guidance of Professor Carpenter that the present
work was conceived and executed.
Such a brief outline of Mr. Nordby's career can, however,
give but an imperfect view of his activities, while it gives none
at all of his influence. He was a teacher who impressed his per-
sonality, not only upon his students, but upon all who knew him.
In his character were united force and refinement, firmness and
geniality. In his earnest work with his pupils, in his lectures to
jjaoAV stq jjoo; oqM i snouiouipouBS .laAau ^nq ';s3uji;3 ! 33sj.rei[j[
ou ;nq '4i]Si.idn i Suiao]^ puB 4sn[ '}3aA\s puv Suoj}s 'sAijjq pui3
apugS aouo ^b i ubuioav 13 si; sj]\ uj a.ind si? i p\o jo 5qSiuj[ jCub
SB papuiui-qSiq puB snoajBAup SB ! sXbav jsauoq puB sraiB s|diUTS
JO iiBui B 1 msBTsnipua poB j(4I|B4ia 'aojoj pajsiiBijxaun jiaq; {jb
qiiAv '3|doad aqj jo uBiu 2uno/i y •^qpjojsj; jbiu][b.[jj pBjuoQ jo
;Bq; UBip j3;oBJBip 3|qi3JimpB ajoai on pug p^noo j J[uiij4 j 'qjnoif
UB0IJ3UIY aq; ui a^qBAO^ jsom puB ;saq si 4biia\. jo adjfj b i(oq
/(ra ajojaq jas 04 paqsiAv I Jl,, : presjfj;sn[ sttXBpy UBUiap^ ^^o[
•A9"y^ aq; 'Supaaui puoraam b 4b paounouojd asjnoosip b nj
•apqAv. ptiB pa.ia;uao-jps 'ubui b sbav ajaq 4Bq; azmSooaj
oj yfsBa SBAV 4j uouBaraap Suuijaj ^somjB puB apuaS siq pujq
-aq Av\ v^^} -lapBJBqo jo ao.ioj aq; Suipaj ;noq;iA4. mtq ^aui jaAa
Avaj 4ai{ piiB 'aopou oqqnd SuipuBuiap puB pjBAVjoj jpsuiiq Siii
-qsnd raojj sSuup ^b aAoqB Jjunjqs ajj "q^Suaj^s siq papaouoo
jaAau vfisapoLU siq jBqj uosBaj siq4 .loj sbav 4j -ubuj aq; jo ajij
ptiB ja^OBjBqa ajpna aqj uodn ;nq ';nauiqoBajd Aiw uo 40U '||b
9AoqB puB 'pa.ia44n p.ioAV |Bpads Aus uo 40u 'spuadap qoiqM ;j[os
aAisBAjad 4Bq5 jo X!pSjB^ sbav 'pBj ui 'aouanyui sifj '^n uiojj
paiBUBUia X|iBnui;uoo qaiqAV uoijBAap puB ^jund auiosajoqAV
JO pa^a aq; aanpojd oj pauiquioo jjb puB i ajn4Bja;q jo aAOj
siq; paojojup.i puB paiUBduioooB ;j:b jo puB ajn;Bu jo aAoj y
•aoi;BSj[aAuo3 jo auiaq; b aq p^noo
smuaS aAi;Bajo jo sjjjoav aaaqAV jCuBduioo jfjaAa ut aojoj ib;ia
B luiq pa.iapua.i 'uiiq ;noqB asoq; o; pa;BOiunrauioo 'uiSBisnq;ua
uB qong •ajn;Bja;i| ut ;saq pa.iapisuoo aq ;Bq; {jb .loj Suipaj stq
JO i[Boidi(; SI ^Bssa ;uasa.id aq; ui pajfBidsip sujop\[ iubi^ji^ .loj
uiSBisnq;ua aqx •s;uids j[a;sBm jo poojq ajq aq; q;iAV pa;B;id|Bd
i£aq; i sSuiq; pBap ;ou ajaAV Xaq; uiiq oj, 'ssiooq jo jaAoi anj;
B uaaq pBq aq q;noj{ X!{jBa raojj; -jaqou uaAa saiaas 'pa;qStiq
j{puii;un OS 'astuio.id aq; 'diqsjBjoqos jo ppoAv aq; ui auop aABq
;qSim aq ';uauidtnba aS.iB| stq q;iAV ';BqAV japtsuoo aAV uaqAV
;nq 'juauiaAaiqoB ui qou 'paapui 'sbav jaa.iBO siq pjBSaj siq; uj
■saAq Jpq; tuojj paqsiuBA pBq pjptiBaq puB ajqou Sutq;aiuos
;Bq; ;pj uiiq uaaou5[ pBq oqAV jp '. spuauj a;Buii;ui Avaj b o; pauy
-uoo ;ou SBAV jaxjS aq; 'babjS aq; o; paujBO sbav ifpoq siq uaq^
•ajq JO puB i(j;aod jo q;oq 'i;nBaq joj a;SB; aq; pBajds aq ';oB;uoa
UI auJBD aq uioqAV q;iAV qB uodn aouahyui jBUOSjad stq ut 'saoua
-ipuB jaq;o o; puB spoqag ajH".! ^^°A "^ ^N ^H^ P s.iaqoBa; aq;
TA
Vll
as a pleasure, and his pleasure as an innocent joy ; a friend to be
coveted ; a disciple such as the Saviour must have loved ; a true
son of God, who dwrelt in the Father's house. Of such youth
our land may well be proud ; and no man need speak despair-
ingly of a nation whose life and institutions can ripen such a
fruit." L. F. M.
College of the City of New York,
May 15, 1901.
INTRODUCTORY.
It should not be hard for the general reader to understand that
the influence which is the theme of this dissertation is real and
explicable. If he will but call the roll of his favorite heroes, he
will find Sigurd there. In his gallery of wondrous women,
he certainly cherishes Brynhild. These poetic creations belong
to the English-speaking race, because they belong to the world.
And if one will but recall the close kinship of the Icelandic and
the Anglo-Saxon languages, he will not find it strange that the
spirit of the old Norse sagas lives again in our English song and
story.
The survey that this essay takes begins with Thomas Gray
(1716-1771), and comes down to the present day. It finds the
fullest measure of the old Norse poetic spirit in William Morris
(1834— 1896), and an increasing interest and delight in it as we
come toward our own time. The enterprise of learned societies
and enlightened book publishers has spread a knowledge of Ice-
landic literature among the reading classes of the present day ;
but the taste for it is not to be accounted for in the same way.
That is of nobler birth than of erudition or commercial pride.
Is it not another expression of that changed feeling for the things
that pertain to the common people, which distinguishes our cen-
tury from the last .'' The historian no longer limits his study to
camp and court ; the poet deigns to leave the drawing-room and
library for humbler scenes. Folk-lore is now dignified into a
science. The touch of nature has made the whole world kin,
and our highly civilized century is moved by the records of the
passions of the earlier society.
This change in taste was long in coming, and the emotional
phase of it has preceded the intellectual. It is interesting to note
that Gray and Morris both failed to carry their public with them
-all the way. Gray, the most cultured man of his time, produced
art forms totally different from those in vogue, and Walpole ^ said
' Quoted in Gray, by E. W. Gosse, English Men of Letters, p. 163.
•iqSnom
JO sapuapua; iiiB^jaa puB 'Xep jno jo s.ia}i.TAV aiqujapisuoo hib}
-.133 .loj ;unooot3 jCbui ^eq^ uopuuuojut jo uoissassod ut aq \\\ii{S
aAV 'paqsmif si p.Tooa.i aq; uaq^ -iBssa ;uas3jd aq; jo uoissim
-luoD aq; a.re asaqj, •pa;ou arqBA Ajvism .iiaq; puB 'dn pajunoo
aq A-Bui suoi;nqu;uoo aq; ;nq 'j^bs o; Asva ;ou sx ;t SBja ja;B| asaq;
uuoj o; padpq sBq ajn;Baa;q as,ioj\j p^Q 3^1 J^J avojj "auiBS
aq; aq p^noM: poq;aut aq; puB 'uBq;aqBzqg[ aq; aoj SB |pAV SB SBja
.ia;Bi .loj ;unoooB o; aABq p^noAv aq '^Bp-o; Xio;siq siq Sui;i.ia\. uo;
-.iB^ a-ia^VV „"U-iaq; paujaAoS jC^snoiAajd psq qoiqAv savbj aq; ui
uoprqoAaj ^b;o; b ;oajja o; paotTpoj;ui ;i saSuBqo aq; Xq puB 'a.in;
-Bja;i^ puB aouaps o; sn;aduii Avau b aAiS o; sbav '^;inbi;uB pais
-SBp JO Xpn;s aq; o; puim UBumq aq; Supoajip 4q. 'qoiqAV 'bjsb
;Bq; jo UAVBp aq; ijjiBiu o; puB i auT0"y^ puB aoaajQ jo suoi;onp
-o.id paqsipd ajouT aq; uiojj 'uot;b;iujt xo uoi;bisub.i; jo adBqs aq;
UI 'suoqismboB aAissaoons aq; aapou o; aouB;.iodinT jo sbm;j,,
: (Si -d) „j(.T;aoj qsi^Sug jo X!.io;sij-j ,, s,uo;.ib^\ jo uopipa ■bzgi
aq; o; aoBjaj^j s.aoijj p.iBqa;'^ ui asod.ind ;uasajd jno jo uoi;bo
-ijpsnf B puB uoissajdxa ub pug a^ -Xiqajaq; paSuBqo X!i|Bi.ia;Bui
SBAA. ajn;-BU s;i ;Bq; .10 's;uamap as.iojvj pjQ Jo uoi;onpoj[;ui aq; £q
spuuBqo AAau o;ui pa;.iaAip sbm ajn;B.ia;q qsqSug jo asjnoo aq;
;Bq; aAOjd o; aj[B;japun ;ou \\im. aaded siqj, •ai;i;-;oa[qns aq;
UI pasn SI ;i sb ./aouanyuj,, pjoA^ aq; jo uopBUBjdxa ub ;noq;iAV
'.laAa.woq ';ja^ aq ;ou ;snai sp.ioA\. Xjo;onpoj;ui asaqx 'padopA
-ap SI i^BSsa siq; sb piBS aq \\ia^ ajoui a;sB; jo aSuBqo siq; jq
■uosiluuax JO qjBap aq; uo pjuBf aq;
uib;;b o; pa-[iBj puB^Sug ui ;aod ;saq aq; puB 'pauiaa;sa ^iqSiq
OS ;ou SBM sijjo]^ tuBin;^ jo ;jb aq; .ia;jBa.iaqx -uauiqsqSua
o; uijojaj i^pos paqoBajd aq n;un 'jpoAV ;.ib siq aoj asiB.id
JO ;(;ua][d punoj 'ami; siq jo ubui a^pBSjaA ;soui aq; 'sujoj\[
«(iIPH s.uxpo "I iftuaua ub jo jp^is aq; jo ;no a^B Suizooq
JO X;ioipj auiajdns aq; — aApouoa ppoo iaq; sauojS puB sXof
aq; ip ;b paAU.iB aS^ABS oxun-a; b s.io.uoq ;Bq.AV qSnojq; ajBO ubo
OHAV ■ ■ ■ "uoissBd Auv qono; 'suiaod jaq;o siq a>[q ';ou op puB
'gui;saja;ui ;ou ajB vfaq; • • • sap^ puB iBA\.iojsj uiojj sapo
;uaiouB aa jq; suiaod siq o; pappB SBq Xb-IQ ,, : suuoj asaq; jo
CONTENTS.
PAGE
Prefatory Note v
Introductory ix
I. The Body of Old Norse Literature i
II. Through the Medium of Latin 3
Thomas Gray 3
The Sources of Gray's Knowledge ,5
Sir William Temple 8
George Hickes 10
Thomas Percy .' 11
Thomas Warton 14
Drake and Mathias 16
Cottle and Herbert 18
Walter Scott 20
III. From the Sources Themselves 23
Richard Cleasby 24
Thomas Carlyle 24
Samuel Laing 26
Longfellow and Lowell 28
Matthew Arnold 30
George Webbe Dasent 32
-Charles Kingsley 33
Edmunjd Gosse 35
IV. By the Hand of the Master 37
William Morris' works 37
". t 38
" 2 39
" 3 47
" 4 49
" S 68
" 6 69
" 7 7°
" 8 70
V. In the Latter Days 74
Echoes of Iceland in Later Poets 74
Recent Translations 76
I.
THE BODY OF OLD NORSE LITERATURE.
First, let us understand what the Old Norse literature was that
has been sending out this constantly increasing influence into the
world of poetry.
It was in the last four decades of the ninth century of our era
that Norsemen began to leave their own country and set up new
homes in Iceland. The sixty years ending w^ith 930 A.D. were
devoted to taking up the land, and the hundred years that ensued
after that date were devoted to quarreling about that land. These
quarrels were the origin of the Icelandic family sagas. The year
1000 brought Christianity to the island, and the period from 1030
to 1 1 20 were ^ears of peace in which stories of the former time
passed from mouth to mouth. The next century saw these
stories take written form, and the period from 1220 to 1260 was
the golden age of this literature. In 1 264, Iceland passed under
the rule of Norway, and a decline of literature began, extending
until 1400, the end of literary production in Iceland. In the
main, the authors of Iceland are unknown.'
There are several well-marked periods, therefore,' in Icelandic
literary production. The earliest was devoted to poetry, Ice-
landic being no different from most other languages in the pre-
cedence of that form. Before the settlement of Iceland, the
Norse lands were acquainted with songs about gods and cham-
pions, w^ritten in a simple verse form. The first settlers wrote
down some of these, and forgot others. In the Codex Regius^
preserved in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, we have a col-
lection of these songs. This material was published in the
seventeeth century as the Scemundar JSdda, and came to be
known as the Elder or Poetic Edda. Both titles are misnomers,
for Ssemund had nothing to do with the making of the book, and
Edda is a name belonging to a book of later date and different
purpose.
'B. Hoff. Hovedpunkter af den Oldislandske litteratur-historie.
K^benhavn. 1873.
1
■sSupuAv.
JO jfpoq ^Bq; jo sifjoM. aq; Suipjooaj o; pajoAap 3.re vomuvfMgr
vjp30<fo2DiCou^ aq; jo uopipa q^uiu aq^ jo snmrqoo uaAaja jBq; ;oi3j
aq; SuLiapisuoo R.(\ pauiujqo si iBq; jo Bapi uy ■ajn;i3.ia}ii asjojvj
PIO JO jfipuBnb aq:( a;Boipux oj pua;ajd ;ou saop qo^aj^s siqj,
•Sjaq:jo puB '■^ooff
/Cafn^^ aq^ ^uosvaSM^x fi'lO fi vSv^ aq^ '■vjFmu^suipjj- puy
aAV qoiqM ui 'sbSbq ,sSuig- aq; si sbSbs ouo^siq aq; jo qouBjq y
•vSvs' S2vfj^ '■vSvg stffauJT) '•vSvs vja^pxv^ 'vSvg vfSS/CqA/Cg;
^vSvg sit3^ 'aidiuT3xa joj 'puy aAV 'oZzi-oozi sbav qoiqAV jo auii;
SnuaAvoy aq; 'dnojS iBouo;siq aq;ux ■»J'»5' s^p^q^cj ^vuSv^
puB »^275' sfpfyfQ.t^^ ^vSvg AVAvn.d9ff aq; '^i'ii^-. vSunsjOj^^
aq; 's.iaq;o Suouib 'ajB dnciS poiq;^ui aqj uj qBouoisiq puB
IBDiq^/ftti qjoq ajB ^aqj, •amp j(u«o;s s^puBjaoj ui un.i sjaajBO
uodn pasBq ajaAv sb3bs aq^ 'ptBS aABq aAV. sy 'sainj paxg o;
SuipjoooB p|o; 'o.iaq b jo ajij aq; spjooa.i -\\ 'saujunoo as-iojvj; aq;
JO Dpsi.TapB.reqo 'otda asojd b si bSbs aqj, -svSvg aq; Xjppadsa
'a.iniBj[aiii siq; jo asojd aq; s; j(j;aod aq; uBq; ajqBnpA ajoj^
•vppg[ 3soAj^ JO uaSunoj^ aqj sb o; pajjaj
-a.i ua;jo ptiB '■vpp^ ayj; pappua 'sopaod asjojsj piQ uo j[joa\.
SjUOsrqjnjg ujoug ui punoj si qou jfaaA si jBq; jBuajBui opaoj
■dnojS siqj
JO ajB jbaSjs puB ajuidsBpifjjs puiAiCg 'sapmbpuB qojoog puB
qsijSug; jo sjapBaj j|b o; uAvoujf 'uossuiuSBipsig iJiSg -sbSbs
ja;B{ UI uAYop ua5}uA\ ajaAV saAi| jiaq; asnBoaq 'aiueu Xq sn 04
UAA.ou3( ajB sppj(s aqi jo A\aj y qBua^Bui jBouo^siq q^iAV auios
puB '|Bua;BUi poiq;X!ui qjiAv sjBap stq; jo auiog <,"3!P1«JIS n
pajIBO }Bq; si ajn}B.Ta}i| ;uaiDUB siq; ui X.i;aod jo ssBp puooas y
•ajaq os|b ajB suuoj ^saqaBa Jiaq4 ui suiaod Suns(0^ aqj puB
suiaod iSpH 3qx 'ROT P"^ •'nppa P"^ "iPO J° IF' '^H' sSuos
jaqio puB 'uopoa^joD siqj ui ajB ^vuevavj/ puB vfsnioyi -spuaSa^
oiojaq asjojsj p^Q P P"^ 'jfSoioq;^ui asjojsj piQ Jo pBaq uiBjunoj
aq; si — a.iB sSuos-jqoj sb jios aq; jo pnpoad b }ou — jjjioav siqj.
II.
THROUGH THE MEDIUM OF LATIN.
Thomas Gray (1716-1771).
In the eighteenth century, Old Norse literature was the lore of
antiquarians. That it is not so to-day among English readers is
due to a line of writers, first of whom was Thomas Gray. In
the thin volume of his poetry, two pieces bear the sub-title :
" An Ode. From the Norse Tongue." These are " The Fatal
Sisters," and "The Descent of Odin," both written in 1761,
though not published until 1768. These poems are among the
latest that Gray gave to the world, and are interesting aside from
our present purpose because they mark the limit of Gray's pro-
gress toward Romanticism.
We are not accustomed to think of Gray as a Romantic poet,
although w^e know well that the movement away from the so-
called Classicism was begun long before he died. The Romantic
element in his poetry is not obvious ; only the close observer de-
tects it, and then only in a few of the poems. The Pindaric
odes exhibit a treatment that is Romantic, and the Norse and
Welsh adaptations are on subjects that are Romantic. But we
must go to his letters to find proof positive of his sympathy with
the breaking aw^ay from Classicism. Here are records of a love
of outdoors that reveled in mountain-climbing and the buffeting
of storms. Here are appreciations of Shakespeare and of Milton,
the like of w^hich were not often proclaimed in his generation.
Here is ecstatic admiration of ballads and of the Ossian imita-
tions, all so unfashionable in the literary culture of the day.
While dates disprove Lowell's statement in his essay on Gray
that "those anti-classical yearnings of Gray began after he had
ceased producing," it is certain that very little of his poetic work
expressed these yearnings. "Elegance, sweetness, pathos, or
even majesty he could achieve, but never that force which vi-
brates in every verse of larger moulded men." Change Lowell's
word "could" to " did," and this sentence will serve our pur-
pose here. 3
Our interest in Gray's Romanticism must confine itself to the
two odes from the Old Norse. It is to be noted that the first
transplanting to English poetry of Old Norse song came about
through the scholar's agency, not the poet's. It was Gray, the
scholar, that made "The Descent of Odin" and "The Fatal
Sisters." They were intended to serve as specimens of a for-
gotten literature in a history of English poetry. In the "Adver-
tisement "to " The Fatal Sisters " he tells how he ca.m6 to give
up the plan: "The Author has long since drop'd his design,
especially after he heard, that it was already in the hands of a
Person well qualified to do it justice, both by his taste, and his
researches into antiquity." Thomas Warton's History of Eng-
lish Poetry was the execution of this design, but in that book no
place was found for these poems.
In his absurd Life of Gray, Dr. Johnson said : " His trans-
lations of Northern and Welsh Poetry deserve praise : the imagery
is preserved, perhaps often improved, but the language is unlike
the language of other poets." There are more correct statements
in this sentence, perhaps, than in any other in the essay, but this
is because ignorance sometimes hits the truth. It is not likely
that the poems would have been understood without the preface
and the explanatory notes, and these, in a measure, made the
reader interested in the literature from which they were draw^n.
Gray called the pieces " dreadful songs," and so in very truth
they are. Strength is the dominant note, rude, barbaric strength,
and only the art of Gray saved it from condemnation. To-day,
with so many imitations froin Old Norse to draw upon, -we can-
not point to a single poem which preserves spirit and form as
well as those of Gray. Take the stanza :
Horror covers all the heath,
Clouds of carnage blot the sun,
Sisters, weave the web of death ;
Sisters, cease, the work is done.
The strophe is perfect in every detail. Short lines, each end-
ing a sentence ; alliteration ; words that echo the sense, and iust
four strokes to paint a picture which has an atmosphere that
whisks you into its own world incontinently. It is no wonder
that writers of later days who have tried similar imitations ascribe
to Thomas Gray the mastership.
That this poet of the eighteenth century, who " equally de-
spised what was Greek and what was Gothic," should have entered
so fully into the spirit and letter of Old Norse poetry is little
short of marvelous. If Professor G. L. Kittredge had not gone
so minutely into the question of Gray's knowledge of Old Norse,'
we might be pardoned for still believing with Gosse '' that the poet
learned Icelandic in his later life. Even after reading Professor
Kittredge's essay, we cannot understand how Gray could catch
the metrical lilt of the Old Norse with only a Latin version to
transliterate the parallel Icelandic. We suspect that Gray's
knowledge was fuller than Professor Kittredge will allow, al-
though we must admit that superficial knowledge may coexist
with a fine interpretative spirit. Matthew Arnold's knowledge
of Celtic literature was meagre, yet he wrote memorably and
beautifully on that subject, as Celts themselves will acknowledge.'
The Sources of Gray's Knowledge.
It has already been said that only antiquarians had knowledge
of things Icelandic in Gray's time. Most of this knowledge was
in Latin, of course, in ponderous tomes with wonderful, long
titles ; and the list of them is awe-inspiring. In all likelihood
Gray did not use them all, but he met references to them in the
books he did consult. Professor Kittredge mentions them in the
paper already quoted, but they are here arranged in the order of
publication, and the list is lengthened to include some books that
were inspired by the interest in Gray's experiments.
1636 and 1651. Wormius. Seu Danica literatura antiquis-
sima, vulgo Gothica dicta, luci reddita opera Olai
Wormii. Cut accessit de prisca Danorum Poesi Disser-
tatio. Hafniae. 1636. Edit. II. 165 1.
The essay on poetry contains interlinear Latin transla-
tions of the Epicedium of Ragnar Loi5br6k, and of the
Drapa of Egill Skallagrfmsson. Bound with the second
edition of 165 1, and bearing the date 1650, is: Specimen
Lexici runici, obscuriorum quarundam vocum, quce in
' Pp. xli-1 in Selections from the Poetry and Prose of Thomas Gray,
edited by W. L. Phelps. Ginn & Co., Boston. 1894.
'Life of Gray, pp. 160 ff.
'Wm. Sharp in Lyra Celtica, p. xx. Patrick Geddes and Colleagues.
Edinburgh. 1896.
friscis occurrunt historiis et poetis Danicis enodattonem
exhibens. Collectum a Magna Olavio pastore Laufasi-
ensi, . . . nunc in ordinem redactum, aucium et locufle-
tatum ab Olao Wormio. Hafnise.
This glossary adduces illustrations from the great poems
of Icelandic literature. Thus early the names and forms
of the ancient literature were known-
1665. Resenius. Edda Islandorum an. Chr. MCCXV
islandice conscrtpta per Snorronem Sturlce IslandicB.
Nomophylacem nunc primum islandice., danice et latine
. . . Petri Johannis Resenii . . . Havniffi. 1665.
A second part contains a disquisition on the philosophy
of the Voluspa and the Hdvamal.
1670. Sheringham. De Anglorum Gentis Origine Discep-
tatio. ^ua eorum migrationes, varice sedes, et ex parte
res gestce., a confusione Linguarum., et dispersione Gen-
tium., usque ad adventum eorum in Britanniam itivesti-
gantur ; qucedam de veterufn Anglorum religione,
Deorum cultu, eorumque opinionibus de statu animcB
post hanc vitam, explicantur. Authore Roberto Sher-
inghamo.- Cantabrigise. 1670.
Chapter XII contains an account of Odin extracted from
the Edda., Snorri Sturluson and others.
1679-92. Temple. Two essays: "Of Heroic Virtue," "Of
Poetry," contained in The Works of Sir William Temple.
London. 1757. Vol. 3, pp. 304-429.
1689. Bartholinus. Thom-ce Bartholini Antiquitatum Dani-
carum de causis contem.ptce a Danis adhuc gentilibus
mortis libri III ex vetustis codicibus et tnonumentis hac-
tenus ineditis congestce. Hafnise. 1689.
The pages of this book are filled with extracts from Old
Norse sagas and poetry which are translated into Latin. No
student of the book could fail to get a considerable knowl-
edge of the spirit and the form of the ancient literature.
1691. Verelius. Index Ungues veteris Scytho-Scandicce sive
GothiccB ex vetusti avi monumentis . . . ed Rudbeck.
Upsalse. 169 1.
i697' Torfffius. Orcades, seu rerum Orcadensium historice.
Havniae. 1697.
1697. Perinskjold. Heimskringla, eller Snorre Sturlusons
Nordlandske Konunga Sagor. Stockholmite. 1697.
Contains Latin and Swedish translation.
1705' Hickes. Linguarum Vett . Seftentrionalium. thesaurus
grammatico criticus et archcBologicus. Oxonise. 1703-5.
This ■work is discussed later.
1716. Dryden. Miscellany Poems. Containing Variety of
JVe-w Translations of the Ancient Poets. . . . Pub-
lished by Mr. Dryden. London. 1716.
1720. Keysler. Antiquitates selectee seftentrionales et Cel-
ticce quibus -plurima loca conciliorum et capitularium ex-
planantur, dogmata theologies ethnicce Celtarum gentium-
que septentrionalium cum moribus et institutis maiorum
nostrorum. circa idola, aras, oracula, templa, lucos, sacer-
dotes, regum electiones, comitia et m.onumenta sepulchralia
una cum reliquiis gentilismi in coetibus christianorum,
ex monumentis potissimum hactenus ineditis fuse perqui-
runtur. Autore Joh. Georgio Keysler. Hannoverae.
1720.
1755. Mallet. Introduction a V Histoire de Dannemarc ou
I'on traite de la Religion., des Lois, des Mmurs, et des
Usages des Anciens Danois. Par M. Mallet. Copen-
hague. 1755.
Discussed later.
1756. Mallet. Monumens de la Mythologie et la Poesie des
Celtes et particulierement des anciens Scandinaves . . .
Par M. Mallet. Copenhague. 1756.
1763. Percy. Five Pieces of Runic Poetry translated from,
the Islandic Language. London. 1763-
This book is described on a later page.
1763. Blair. A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian,
the Son of Fingal . [By Hugh Blair. J London. 1763.
1770. Percy. Northern Antiquities : or a description of the
Manners, Customs, Religion and Laws of the ancient
Danes, and other Northern Nations ,■ including these of
our own Saxon Ancestors. With a translation of the
Bdda or System of Runic Mythology, and other Pieces
from the Ancient Icelandic Tongue. Translated from
M. Mallet's Introduction a I'Histoire de Dannemarc.
London. 1770.
1774. Warton. The History of English Poetry. By
Thomas Warton. London. 1774-81.
In this book the prefatory essay entitled " On the Origin
of Romantic Fiction in Europe " is significant. It is treated
at length later on.
Sir William Temple (1628-1699).
From the above list it appears that the earliest mention in the
English language of Icelandic literature was Sir William Tem-
ple's. The two essays noted above have many references to
Northern customs and songs. Macaulay's praise of Temple's
style is well deserved, and the slighting remarks about the matter
do not apply to the passages in evidence here. Temple's
acknowledgments to Wormius indicate the source of his informa-
tion, and it is .a commentary upon the exactness of the anti-
quarian's knowledge that so many of the statements in Temple's
essays are perfectly good to-day. Of course the terms " Runic "
and " Gothic" were misused, but so were they a century later.
Odin is " the first and great hero of the western Scythians; he
led a mighty swarm of the Getes, under the name of Goths, from
the Asiatic Scythia into the farthest northwest parts of Europe ;
he seated and spread his kingdom round the whole Baltic sea,
and over all the islands in it, and extended it westward to the
ocean and southward to the Elve." ^ Temple places Odin's expe-
dition at two thousand years before his own time, but he gets
many other facts right. Take this summing up of the old Norse
belief as an example :
' ' An opinion was fixed and general among them, that death
was but the entrance into another life ; that all men who lived
lazy and inactive lives, and died natural deaths, by sickness, or
iQf Heroic Virtue, p. 355, Vol. Ill of Sir William Temple's Works.
London. 1770.
by age, went into vast caves under ground, all dark and miry,
full of noisom creatures, usual in such places, and there forever
grovelled in endless stench and misery. On the contrary, all
who gave themselves to warlike actions and enterprises, to the
conquests of their neighbors, and slaughters of enemies, and
died in battle, or of violent deaths upon bold adventures or resolu-
tions, they went immediately to the vast hall or palace of Odin,
their god of war, who eternally kept open house for all such
guests, where they were entertained at infinite tables, in per-
petual feasts and mirth, carousing every man in bowls made of
the skulls of their enemies they had slain, according to which
numbers, every one in these mansions of pleasure was the most
honoured and the best entertained." ^
Thus before Gray was born. Temple had written intelligently
in English of the salient features of the Old Norse mythology.
Later in the same essay, he recognized that some of the civil and
political procedures of his country were traceable to the North-
men, and, what is more to our immediate purpose, he recognized
the poetic value of Old Norse song. On p. 358 occurs this
paragraph :
"I am deceived, if in this sonnet (two stanzas of ' Regner
Lodbrog'), and a following ode of Scallogrim there be not a vein
truly poetical, and in its kind Pindaric, taking it with the allow-
ance of the different climates, fashions, opinions, and languages
of such distant countries."
Temple certainly had no knowledge of Old Norse, and yet, in
1679, he could write so of a poem which he had to read through
the Latin. Sir William had a wide knowledge and a fine ap-
preciation of literature, and an enthusiasm for its dissemination.
He takes evident delight in telling the fact that princes and kings
of the olden time did high honor to bards. He regrets that
classic culture was snuffed out by a barbarous people, but he re-
joices that a new kind came to take its place. "Some of it
wanted not the true spirit of poetry in some degree, or that natural
inspiration which has been said to arise from some spark of
poetical fire wherewith particular men are born ; and such as it
was, it served the turn, not only to please, but even to charm, the
ignorant and barbarous vulgar, where it was in use." ^
' Of Heroic Virtue, p. 356.
2 Of Poetry, p. 416.
10
It is proverbial that music hath charms to soothe the savage
breast. That savage music charms cultivated minds is not pro-
verbial, but it is nevertheless true. Here is Sir William Temple,
scion of a cultured race, bearing witness to the fact, and here is
Gray, a life-long dweller in a staid English university, endorsing
it a half century later. As has been intimated, this was unusual
in the time in which they lived, when, in Lowell's phrase, the
' ' blight of propriety " was on all poetry. But it was only the
rude and savage in an unfamiliar literature that could give pause
in the age of Pope. The milder aspects of Old Norse song and
saga must await the stronger century to give them favor. ' ' Be-
hold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in the carcass of
the lion."
George Hickes (1642-1715).
The next book in the list that contains an English contribution
to the knowledge of our subject is the Thesaurus of George
Hickes. On p. 193 of Part I, there is a prose translation of
"The Awakening of Angantyr," from the Harvarar Saga.
Acknowledgment is given to Verelius for the text of the poem,
but Hickes seems to have chosen this poem as "the gem of the
Saga. The translation is another proof of an antiquarian's taste
and judgment, and the reader does not wonder that it soon found
a wider audience through another publication. It vi^as reprinted
in the books of 17 16 and 1770 in the above list. An extract or
two will show that the vigor of the old poem has not been al-
together lost in the translation :
Hervor. — Awake Angantyr, Hervor the only daughter of
thee and Suafu doth awaken thee. Give me out of the tombe,
the hardned ' sword, which the dwarfs made for Suafurlama.
Hervardur, Hiorvardur, Hrani, and Angantyr, with helmet, and
coat of mail, and a sharp sword, with sheild and accoutrements,
and bloody spear, I wake you all, under the roots of trees. Are
the sons of Andgrym, who delighted in mischief, now become
dust and ashes, can none of Eyvors sons now speak with me out
of the habitations of the dead ! Harvardur, Hiorvardur ! so may
you all be within your ribs, as a thing that is hanged up to putri-
fie among insects, unlesse you deliver me the sword which the
dwarfs made . . . and the glorious belt.
^ Spelling and punctuation are as in the original.
11
Angantyr. — Daughter Hervor, full of spells to raise the dead,
why dost thou call so? wilt thou run on to thy own mischief?
thou art mad, and out of thy senses, who art desperatly re-
solved to waken dead men. I was not buried either by father or
other freinds. Two which lived after me got Tirfing, one of
whome is now possessor thereof.
Hervor .^—'Yhaxx dost not tell the truth : so let Odin hide thee
in the tombe, as thou hast Tirfing by thee. Art thou unwilling,
Angantyr, to give an inheritance to thy only child ? . . .
Angantyr. — Fals woman, thou dost not understand, that
thou speakest foolishly of that, in which thou dost rejoice, for
Tirfing shall, if thou wilt beleive me, maid, destroy all thy off-
spring.
Hervor. — I must go to my seamen, here I have no mind to
stay longer. Little do I care, O Royall freind, what my sons
hereafter quarrell about.
Angantyr. — Take and keep Hialmars bane, which thou shalt
long have and enjoy, touch but the edges of it, there is poyson
in both of them, it is a most cruell devourer of men.
Hervor. — I shall keep, and take in hand, the sharp sword
which thou hast let me have : I do not fear, O slain father ! what
my sons hereafter may quarrell about. . . . Dwell all of you
safe in the tombe, I must be gon, and hasten hence, for I seem
to be, in the midst of a place where fire burns round about me.
One can well understand, who handles the ponderous The-
saurus., w^hy the first English lovers of Old Norse were antiquar-
ians. " The Awakening of Angantyr " is literally buried in this
work, and only the student of Anglo-Saxon prosody would come
upon it unassisted, since it is an illustration in a chapter of the
Grammaticce Anglo-Saxonicce et Mceso-Gothicce. Students
'will remember in this connection that it was a work on poetics that
saved for us the original Icelandic Edda. The Icelandic skald
had to know his nation's mythology.
Thomas Percy (1729-1811).
The title of Chapter XXIII in Hickes' work indicates that even
among learned doctors mistaken notions existed as to the relation-
ship of the Teutonic languages. It took more than a hundred
years to set the error right, but in the meanwhile the literature of
12
Iceland was becoming better known to English readers. To the
French scholar, Paul Henri Mallet ( 1 730-1807) , Europe owes the
first popular presentation of Northern antiquities and literature.
Appointed professor of belles-lettres in the Copenhagen academy
he found himself with more time than students on his hands, be-
cause not many Danes at that time understood French. His lei-
sure time was applied to the study of the antiquities of his
adopted country, the King's commission for a history of Den-
mark making that necessary. As a preface to this work he pub-
lished, in 1755, an Introduction a V Histoire de Dannemarc ou
I'on traite de la Religion, des Lois, des Mceurs et des Usages
des Anciens Danois, and, in 1756, the work in the list on a pre-
vious page. In this second book was the first translation into a
modern tongue of the Edda, and this volume, in consequence, at-
tracted much attention. The great English antiquarian, Thomas
Percy, afterward Bishop of Dromore, was early drawn to this
work, and with the aid of friends he accomplished a translation
of it, ■which w^as published in 1770.
Mallet's work was very bad in its account of the racial affinities
of the nations commonly referred to as the barbarians that over-
turned the Roman empire and culture. Percy, who had failed
to edit the ballad MSS. so as to please Ritson, was wise enough
to see Mallet's error, and to insist that Celtic and Gothic anti-
quities must not be confounded. '\ Mallet's translation of the
Edda was imperfect, too, because he had followed the Latin
version of Resenius, which was notoriously poor. Percy's
Edda was no better, because it was only an English version of
Mallet. But we are not concerned with these critical considera-
tions here ; and so it will be enough to record the fact that with
the publication of Percy's Northern Antiquities — the English
name of Mallet's work — in 1770, knowledge of Icelandic litera-
ture passed from the exclusive control of learned antiquarians.
More and more, as time went on, men went to the Icelandic
originals, and translations of poems and sagas came from the
press in increasing numbers. In the course of time came original
works that were inspired by Old Norse stories and Old Norse
conceptions.
We have already noted that Gray's poems on Icelandic themes,
though written in 1761, were not published until 1768. Another
13
delayed work on similar themes was Percy's Pive Pieces of
Runic Poetry^ which, the author tells us, was prepared for the
press in 176I) but, through an accident, was not published until
1 763 , The preface has this interesting sentence : "It would be
as vain to deny, as it is perhaps impolitic to mention, that this at-
tempt is owing to the success of the Erse fragments." The book
has an appendix containing the Icelandic originals of the poems
translated, and that portion of the book shows that a scholar's
hand and interest made the volume. So, too, does the close of
the preface : " That the study of ancient northern literature hath
its important uses has been often evinced by able writers : and
that it is not dry or unamusive this little work it is hoped will
demonstrate. Its aim at least is to shew, that if those kind of
studies are not always employed on works of taste or classic ele-
gance, they serve at least to unlock the treasures of native genius ;
they present us with frequent sallies of bold imagination, and
constantly afford matter for philosophical reflection by showing
the workings of the human mind in its almost original state of
nature."
That original state was certainly one of original sin, if these
poems are to be believed. Every page in this volume is drenched
wath blood, and from this book, as from Gray's poems and the
other Old Norse imitations of the time, a picture of fierceness
and fearfulness was the only one possible. Percy intimates in
his preface that Icelandic poetry has other tales to tell besides the
" Incantation of Hervor," the " Dying Ode of Regner Lodbrog,"
the " Ransome of Egill the Scald," and the "Funeral Song of
Hacon," which are here set down; he offers the "Complaint of
Harold " as a slight indication that the old poets left ' ' behind
them many pieces on the gentler subjects of love or friendship."
But the time had not come for the presentation of those pieces.
All of these translations were from the Latin versions extant
in Percy's time. This volume copied Hickes's translation of
' ' Hervor's Incantation " modified in a few particulars, and like
that one, the other translations in this volume were in prose. The
work is done as well as possible, and it remained for later scholars
to point out errors in translation. The negative contractions in
Icelandic were as yet unfamiliar, and so, as Walter Scott pointed
out (in Edin. Rev., Oct., 1806), Percy made Regner Lodbrog
14
say, "The pleasure of that day (of battle, p. 34 in this Five
Pieces) was like having a fair virgin placed beside one in the
bed," and " The pleasure of that day was like kissing a young
widow at the highest seat of the table," when the poet really
made the contrary statement.
Of course, the value of this book depends upon the view
that is taken of it. Intrinsically, as literature, it is well-nigh
valueless. It indicates to us, however, a constantly growing
interest in the literature it reveals, and it undoubtedly directed
the attention of the poets of the succeeding generation to a field
rich in romantic possibilities. That no great work was then
created out of this material was not due to neglect. As we shall
see, many puny poets strove to breathe life into these, bones, but
the divine power was not in the poets. Some who were not
poets had yet the insight to feel the value of this ancient litera-
ture, and they made known the facts concerning it. It seems a
mechanical and unpromising way to have great poetry written,
this calling out, "New Lamps for Old." Yet it is on record
that great poems have been written at just such instigation.
Thomas Warton (i 728-1 790).
Historians^ of Romanticism have marked Warton's History of
English Poetry as one of the forces that made for the new idea
in literature. This record of a past which, though out of favor,
was immeasurably superior to the time of its historian, spread
new views concerning the poetic art among the rising generation,
and suggested new subjects as well as new treatments of old sub-,
jects. We have mentioned the fact that Gray handed over to
Warton his notes for a contemplated history of poetry, and that
Warton found no place in his work for Gray's adaptations from
the Old Norse. Warton was not blind to the beauties of Gray's
poems, nor did he fail to appreciate the merits of the litera-
ture which they illustrated. His scheme relegated his remarks
concerning that poetry to the introductory dissertation, "Of the
Origin of Romantic Fiction in Europe." What he had to say
was in support of a theory which is not accepted to-day, and of
course his statements concerning the origin of the Scandinavian
' Stopford Brooke, English Literature. D. Appleton & Co. , New Yorli.
1884. p. 150.
15
people were as wrong as those that we found in Mallet and
Temple. But with all his misinformation, Warton managed to
get at many truths about Icelandic poetry, and his presentation of
them was fresh and stimulating. Already the Old Norse mythol-
ogy was well known, even down to Valhalla and the mistletoe.
Old Norse poetry was well enough known to call forth this re-
mark :
" They (the ' Runic ' odes) have a certain sublime and figura-
tive cast of diction, which is indeed one of their predominant
characteristics. . . . When obvious terms and phrases evidently
occurred, the Runic poets are fond of departing from the com-
mon and established diction. They appear to use circumlocu-
tion and comparisons not as a matter of necessity, but of choice
and skill : nor are these metaphorical colourings so much the re-
sult of want of words, as of warmth of fancy." The note gives
these examples : " Thus, a rainbow is called, the bridge of the
gods. Poetry, the mead of Odin. The earth, the vessel that
floats on ages. A ship, the horse of the waves. A tongue, the
sword of words. Night, the veil of cares."
A study of the notes to Warton's dissertation reveals the fact
that he had made use of the books already mentioned in the list
on a previous page, and of no others that are significant. But
such excellent use was made of them, that it would seem as if
nothing was left in them that could be made valuable for spread-
ing a knowledge of and an enthusiasm for Icelandic literature.
When it is remembered that Warton's purpose was to prove the
Saracenic origin of romantic fiction in Europe, through the Moors
in Spain, and that Icelandic literature was mentioned only to ac-
count for a certain un-Arabian tinge in that romantic fiction, the
wonder grows that so full and fresh a presentation of Old Norse
poetry should have been made. He puts such passages as these
into his illustrative notes: "Tell my mother Suanhita in Den-
mark, that she will not this summer comb the hair of her son. I
had promised her to return, but now my side shall feel the edge
of the sword." There is an appreciation of the poetic here, that
makes us feel that Warton was not an unworthy wearer of the
laurel. He insists that the Saxon poetry was powerfully affected
by "the old scaldic fables and heroes," and gives in the text a
translation of the " Battle of Brunenburgh" to prove his case.
16
He admires ' ' the scaldic dialogue at the tomb of Angantyr," but
wrongly attributes a beautiful translation of it to Gray. He
quotes at length from " a noble ode, called in the northern chron-
icles the Elogium of Hacon, by the scald Eyvynd ; who, for his
superior skill in poetry was called the Cross of Poets (Eyvindr
Skdlldaspillir) , and fought in the battle which he celebrated."
He knows how Iceland touched England, as this passage will
show: "That the Icelandic bards were common in England
during the Danish invasions, there are numerous proofs. Egill,
a celebrated Icelandic poet, having murthered the son and many
of the friends of Eric Blodaxe, king of Denmark or Norway,
then residing in Northumberland, and which he had just con-
quered, procured a pardon by singing before the king, at the
command of his queen Gunhilde, an extemporaneous ode. Egill
compliments the king, who probably was his patron, with the
appellation of the English chief. "I offer my freight to the
king. I owe a poem for my ransom. I present to the English
Chief the mead of Odin." Afterwards he calls this Danish
conqueror the commander of the Scottish fleet. " The com-
mander of the Scottish fleet fattened the ravenous birds. The
sister of Nera (Death) trampled on the foe : she trampled on the
evening food of the eagle."
So wide a knowledge and so keen an appreciation of Old
Norse in a Warton, whose interest was chiefly elsewhere, argues
for a spreading popularity of the ancient literature. Thus far,
only Gray has made living English literature out of these old
stories, and he only two short poems. There were other attempts
to achieve poetic success w^ith this foreign material, but a hun-
dred exacting years have covered them with oblivion.
Drake (1766-1836). Mathias (1754-1835).
In the second decade of the nineteenth century, Nathan Drake,
M.D., made a strong effort to popularize Norse mythology and
literature. The fourth edition of his work entitled Literary
Hours (London, 1830) contains ' an appreciative article on the
subject, the fullness of which is indicated in these words from
p. 309 :
" The most striking and characteristic parts of the Scandi-
^Vol. 3, pp. 146-311.
17
navian mythology, together with no inconsiderable portion of
the manners and customs of our northern ancestors, have now
passed before the reader ; their theology, warfare, and poetry,
their gallantry, religious rites, and superstitions, have been
separately, and, I trust, distinctly reviewed."
The essay is written in an easy style that doubtless gained for
it many readers. All the available knowledge of the subject
was used, and a clearer view of it was presented than had been
obtainable in Percy's "Mallet." The author was a thoughtful
man, able to detect errors in Warton and Percy, but his zeal in
his enterprise led him to praise versifiers inordinately that had
used the "Gothic fables." He quotes liberally from writers
whose books are not to be had in this country, and certainly the
uninspired verses merit the neglect that this fact indicates. He
calls Sayers' pen " masterly" that wrote these lines :
Coucher of the ponderous spear,
Thou shout' St amid the battle's stound —
The armed Sisters hear,
Viewless hurrying o'er the ground
They strike the destin'd chiefs and call them to the skies.
(P. i68.)
From Penrose he quotes such lines as these :
The feast begins, the skull goes round,
Laughter shouts — the shouts resound.
The gust of war subsides — E'en now
The grim chief curls his cheek, and smooths his rugged brow.
(P. 171.)
From Sterling comes this imitation of Gray :
Now the rage of combat burns;
Haughty chiefs on chiefs lie slain ;
The battle glows and sinks by turns.
Death and carnage load the plain.
(P. 172.)
From these extracts, it appears that the poets who imitated
Gray considered that only " dreadful songs," like his, were to be
found in Scandinavian poetry.
Downman, Herbert and Mathias are also adduced by Dr.
Drake as examples of poets who have gained much by Old Norse
borrowings, but these borrowings are invariably scenes from a
18
chamber of horrors. It occurs to me that perhaps Dr. Drake
had begun to th-eof the spiritless echoes of the classical schools,
and that he fondly hoped that such shrieks and groans as those
he admired in this essay would satisfy his cravings for better
things in poetry. But the critic had no adequate knowledge of
the way in which genius works. His one desire in these studies
of Scandinavian mythology was "to recommend it to the votaries
of the Muse, as a machinery admirably constructed for their pur-
pose" (p. 158). He hopes for " a more extensive adoption of
the Scandinavian mythology, especially in our epic and lyric
compositions" (p. 311). We smile at the notion, to-day, but
that very conception of poetry as " machinery" is characteristic
of a whole century of our English literature.
The Mathias mentioned by Drake is Thomas James Mathias,
whose book. Odes Chiefly from the Norse Tongue (London,
1781), received the distinction of an American reprint (New
York, 1806). Bartholinus furnishes the material and Gray the
spirit for these pieces.
Amos S. Cottle (1768-1800). William Herbert
(1778-1847).
In this period belong two works of translation that mark the
approach of the time when Old Norse prose and poetry were to
be read in the original. As literature they are of little value, and
they had but slight influence on succeeding writers.
At Bristol, in 1797, was published Icelandic Poetry^ or, The
Edda of Saemund translated into English Verse, by A. S.
Cottle of Magdalen College, Cambridge. This work has an In-
troduction containing nothing worth discussing here, and an
"Epistle" to A. S. Cottle from Robert Southey. The laureate,
in good blank verse, discourses on the Old Norse heroes whom
he happens to know about. They are the old favorites, Regner
Lodbrog and his sons ; in Southey's poem the foeman's skull is,
as usual, the drinking cup. It was certainly time for new actors
and new properties to appear in English versions of Scandinavian
stories.
The translations are twelve in number, and evince an intelli-
gent and facile versifier. When all is said, these old songs could
contribute to the pleasure of very few. Only a student of his-
19
toiy, or a poet, or an antiquarian, would dwell with loving in-
terest on the lays of Vafthrudnis, Grimner, Skirner and Hymer
(as Cottle spells them) . Besides, they are difficult to read, and
must be abundantly annotated to make them comprehensible. In
such works as this of Cottle, a Scott might find wherewith to
lend color to a story or a poem, but the common man would bor-
row Walpole's words, used in characterizing Gray's "Odes":
' ' They are not interesting, and do not . . . touch any passion ;
our human feelings . . . are not here affected. Who can care
through what horrors a Runic savage arrived at all the joys and
glories they could conceive — the supreme felicity of boozing ale
out of the skull of an enemy in Odin's hall ? " ^
In 1804 a book was published bearing this title-page : Select
Icelandic Poetry^ translated from the originals : with notes.
The preface was signed by the author, William Herbert. The
pieces are from Ssemund, Bartholinus, Verelius, and Perinskj old's
edition of Ileimskringia, and were all translated with the as-
sistance of the Latin versions. The notes are explanatory of the
allusions and the hiatuses in the poems. Reference is made to
MSS. of the Norse pieces existing in museums and libraries,
which the author had consulted. Thus we see scholarship be-
ginning to extend investigations. As for the verses themselves
not much need be said. They are not so good as Cottle's, al-
though they received a notice from Scott in the Edinburgh He-
view. The thing to notice about the work is that it pretends to
come direct from Old Norse, not, as most of the work dealt with
so far, via Latin.
Icelandic poetry is more difficult to read than Icelandic prose,
and so it seems strange that the former should have been attacked
first by English scholars. Yet so it was, and until 1844 our
English literature had no other inspiration in old Norse writings
than the rude and rugged songs that first lent their lilt to Gray.
The human North is in the sagas, and when they were revealed to
our people, Icelandic literature began to mean something more
than Valhalla and the mead-bouts there. The scene was changed
to earth, and the gods gave place to nobler actors, men and
women. The action was lifted to the eminence of a world-
drama. But before the change came Sir Walter Scott, and it is
'Quoted in Introduction, p. vii.
20
fitting that the first period of Norse influence in English litera-
ture should close, as it began, with a great master.
Sir Walter Scott (1771-1832).
In 1792, Walter Scott was twenty-one years old, and one of
his note-books of that year contains this entry : " Vegtam's Kvitha
or The Descent of Odin, with the Latin of Thomas Bartholine,
and the English poetical version of Mr. Gray ; with some account
of the Death of Balder, both as related in the Edda, and as
handed down to us by the Northern historians — Auctore Gualtero
Scott." According to Lockhart,^ the Icelandic, Latin and Eng-
lish versions were here transcribed, and the historical account
that followed — seven closely written quarto pages — was read
before a debating society.
It was to be expected that one so enthusiastic about antiquities
as Scott would early discover the treasury of Norse history and
song. At twenty-one, as we see, he is transcribing a song in a
language he knew nothing about, as well as in translations.
Fourteen years later, he has learned enough about the subject to
write a review of Herbert's Poems and Translations^''
In 1813, he writes an account of the Eyrbyggja Saga for
Illustrations of Northern Antiquities (edited by Robert Jame-
son, Edinburgh, 1814).
There are two of Scott's contributions to literature that possess
more than a mere tinge of Old Norse knowledge, namely, the
long poem "Harold, the Dauntless" (published in 1817), and
the long story "The Pirate" (published in 1821). The poem
is weak, but it illustrates Scott's theory of the usefulness of poet-
ical antiquities to the modern poet. In another connection Scott
said : "In the rude song of the Scald, we regard less the strained
imagery and extravagance of epithet, than the v\''ild impressions
which it conveys of the dauntless resolution, savage superstition,
rude festivity and ceaseless depredations of the ancient Scandi-
navians.'" The poet did his work in accordance with this
theory, and so in " Harold, the Dauntless," we note no flavor of
1 Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Bart., Vol. I, p. 231. Bos-
ton, Houghton, Osgood & Co. 1879.
2 Edinburgh Review, Oct., 1806.
'Quoted in Lockhart's Life, Vol. Ill, p. 241.
21
the older poetry in phrase or in method. Harold is fierce enough
and grim enough to measure up to the old ideal of a Norse hero.
" I was rocked in a buckler and fed from a blade," is his boast
before his newly christened father, and in his apostrophe to his
grandsire Eric, the popular notion of early Norse antiquarianism
is again exhibited :
In wild Valhalla hast thou quaffed
From foeman's skull metheglin draught?
Scott's scholarship in Old Norse was largely derived from the
Latin tomes, and such conceptions as those quoted are therefore
common in his poem. That the poet realized the inadequacy of
such knowledge, the review of Herbert's poetry, published in the
Edinburgh Review for October, 1806, shows. In this article
he has a vision of what shall be when men shall be able ' ' to
trace the Runic rhyme " itself.
" The Pirate," exhibited the Wizard's skill in weaving the old
and the new together, the old being the traditions of the Shet-
lands, full of the ancestral beliefs in Old Norse things, the new
being the life in those islands in a recent century. This is a stir-
ring story, that comes into our consideration because of its Scan-
dinavian antiquities. Again we find the Latin treasuries of Bar-
tholinus, Torfseus, Perinskjold and Olaus Magnus in evidence,
though here, too, mention is made of " Haco," and Tryggvason
and " Harfager." With a background of island scenery, with
which Scott became familiar during a light-house inspector's voy-
age made in 18 14, this story is a picture full of vivid colors and
characters. In Noma of the Fitful Head, he has created a mys-
terious personage in whose mouth ' ' Runic rhymes " are the only
proper speech. She stills the tempest with them, and "The
Song of the Tempest " is a strong apostrophe, though it is neither
Runic nor rhymed. She preludes her life-story with verses that
are rhymed but not Runic, and she sings incantations in the same
wise. This ReiTnkennar is an echo of the Voluspd, and is the
only kind of Norse woman that the time of Scott could imagine.
Claud Halcro, the poet, is fond of rhyming the only kind of Norse-
man known to his time, and in his " Song of Harold Harfager "
we hear the echoes of Gray's odes. Scott's reading was wide in
all ancient lore, and he never missed a chance to introduce an odd
22
custom if it would make an interesting scene in his story. So
here we have the " Sword Dance " (celebrated by Olaus Mag-
nus, though I have never read of it in Old Norse), the "Ques-
tioning of the Sibyl " (like that in Gray's " Descent of Odin"),
the " Capture and Sharing of the Whale," and the "Promise of
Odin." In most of the natives there are turns of speech that re-
call the Norse ancestry of the Shetlanders.
In Scott, then, we see the lengthening out of the influence of
the antiquarians who wrote of a dead past in a dead language.
The time was at hand when that past was to live again, painted
in the living words of living men.
III.
FROM THE SOURCES THEMSELVES.
In the preceding section we noted the achievements of Eng-
lish scholarship and genius working under great disadvantages.
Gray and Scott may have had a smattering of Icelandic, but
Latin translations were necessary to reveal the meaning of what
few Old Norse texts were available to them. This paucity of
material, more than the ignorance of the language, was respon-
sible for the slow progress in popularizing the remarkable litera-
ture of the North. Scaldic and Eddie poems comprised all that
was known to English readers of that literature, and in them the
superhuman rather than the human elements were predominant.
We have come now to a time when the field of our view
broadens to include not only more and different material, but
more and different men. The sagas were annexed to the old
songs, and the body of literature to attract attention was thus in-
creased a thousand fold. The antiquarians were supplanted by
scholars who, although passionately devoted to the study of the
past, were still vitally interested in the affairs of the time in
which they lived. The second and greatest stage of the develop-
ment of Old Norse influence in England has a mark of distinc-
tion that belongs to few literary epochs. The men who made it
lived lives that were as heroic in devotion to duty and principle
as many of those written down in the sagas themselves. I have
sometimes wondered whether it is merely accidental that English
saga scholars were so often men of high soul and strong action.
Certain it is that Richard Cleasby, and Samuel Laing, and
George Webbe Dasent, and Robert Lowe are types of men that
the Icelanders would have celebrated, as having " left a tale to
tell " in their full and active lives. And no less certain is it that
Thomas Carlyle, and Matthew Arnold, and William Morris, and
Charles Kingsley, and Gerald Massey labored for a better man-
hood that should rise to the stature and reflect the virtues of the
heroes of the Northland.
23
24
Richard Cleasby (i 797-1847).
In the forties of the nineteenth century several minds began to
work, independently of one another, in this wider field of Ice-
landic literature. Richard Cleasby (1797-1847), an English
merchant's son with scholarly instincts, began the study of the
sagas, but made slight progress because of w^hat he called an
"unaccountable and most scandalous blank," the want of a dic-
tionary. This was in 1840, and for the next seven years he
labored to fill up that blank. The record^ of those years is a
wonderful witness to the heroism and spirit of the scholar, and
justifies Sir George Dasent's characterization of Cleasby as " one
of the most indefatigable students that ever lived." The work
thus begun was not completed until many years afterward (it is
dated 1874), and, by untoward circumstances, very little of it is
Richard Cleasby's. But generous scholarship acknowledged its
debt to the man who gave his strength and his wealth to the
work, by placing his name on the title-page. No less shall we
fail to honor his memory by mentioning his labors here.
Although the dictionary was not completed in the decade of its
inception, the study that it was designed to promote took hold
on a number of men and the results were remarkable for both
literature and scholarship. *
Thomas Carlyle (i 795-1 881).
First in order of time was the work of Thomas Carlyle. It
will not seem strange to the student of English literature to find
that this writer came under the influence of the old skalds and
sagaman and spoke appreciative words concerning them. His
German studies had to take cognizance of the Old Norse treas-
uries of poetry, and he became a diligent reader of Icelandic
literature in what ti-anslations he could get at, German and Eng-
lish. The strongest utterance on the subject that he left behind
him is in "Lecture I" of the series "On Heroes, Hero- Wor-
ship, and the Heroic in History," dated May, 1840. This is a
treatment of Scandinavian mythology, rugged and thorough, like
all of this man's work. Carlyle evinces a scholar's instinct in
1 In G. W. Dasent's Life of Cleasby, prefixed to the Icelandic-English
Dictionary. Based on the MS. collection of the late Richard Cleasby, en-
larged and completed by Gudbrand Vigfusson. Oxford, 1874.
25
more than one place, as, for instance, when he doubts theg-rand-
niother etymology of Edda^ an etymology repeated until a much
later day by scholars of a less sure sense/ But this lecture
" On Heroes " is also a glorification of the literature with which
we are dealing, and in this regard it is worthy of special note
here.
In the first place, Carlyle with true critical instinct caught the
essence of it; to him it seemed to have " a rude childlike way
of recognizing the divineness of Nature, the divineness of Man."
For him Scandinavian mythology was superior in sincerity to the
Grecian, though it lacked the grace of the latter. " Sincerity, I
think, is better than grace. I feel that these old Northmen were
looking into Nature with open eye and soul : most earnest,
honest ; childlike, and yet manlike ; with a great-hearted sim-
plicity and depth and freshness, in a true, loving, admiring,
unfearing way. A right valiant, true old race of men." This is
a truer appreciation than Gray and Walpole had, eighty years
before. In the second place, Carlyle was not misled into thinking
that valor in war was the only characteristic of the rude Norse-
man, and skill in drinking his only household virtue. " Beauti-
ful traits of pity, too, and honest pity." Then he tells of Baldur
and Nanna, in his rugged prose account anticipating Matthew
Arnold. Other qualities of the literature appeal to him. "I
like much their robust simplicity ; their veracity, directness of
conception. Thor ' draws down his brows ' in a veritable Norse
rage ; ' grasps his hammer till the knuckles grow white."
Again ; "A great bfoad Brobdignag grin of true humor is this
Skrymir ; mirth resting on earnestness and sadness, as the rain-
bow on the black tempest : only a right valiant heart is capable
of that." Still again: " This law of mutation, which also is a
law written in man's inmost thought, has been deciphered by
these old earnest Thinkers in their rude style."
Thomas Carlyle, seeking to explain the worship of a pagan
divinity, chose Odin as the noblest example of such a hero. The
picture of Odin he drew from the prose Edda, mainly, and his
^In another work by Carlyle, The Early Kings of JSIor-way (1875) he
takes special delight in revealing to Englishmen name etymologies that
hark back to Norse times. Of this sort are Osborn from Osbjorn ; Tooley
St. (Londqn) from St. Olave, St. Oley, Stooley, Tooley, (Chap. X).
26
purpose required that he paint the picture in the most attractive
colors. So it happened that our English literature got its first
complete view of Old Norse ethics and art. The memory of
Gray's "dreadful songs" had ruled for almost a century, and
ordinary readers might be pardoned for thinking that Old Norse
literature, like Old Norse history, was written in blood. We
have seen that Gray's imitators perpetuated the old idea, and
that even Scott sanctioned it, and now we see England's eman-
cipation from it. The grouty old Scotchman of Craigenputtoch
knew no more Icelandic than most of his fellow countrymen (be
it noted that he said: "From the Humber upwards, all over
Scotland, the speech of the common people is still in a singu-
lar degree Icelandic, its Germanism has still a peculiar Norse
tinge") ; but he saw far more deeply into the heart of Icelandic
literature than anybody before him. His emphasis of its many
sidedness, of its sincerity, its humanity, its simplicity, its direct-
ness, its humor and its wisdom, was the signal for a change in
the popular estimation of its worth to our modern art. Since
his day we have had Morris and Arnold and a host of minor
singers, and the nineteenth century revival of interest in Old
Norse literature.
The other work by Carlyle dealing directly with Old Norse
material is The Early Kings of Norway. Here he digests
Ueimskringla, which was obtainable through Laing's transla-
tion, in a way to stir the blood. The story, as he tells it, is
breathlessly interesting, and it is a pity that readers of Carlyle so
often stop short of this work. As in the Hero- Worship., he
shows this Teutonic bias, and the religious training that minified
Greek literature.
Snorri's work elicits from him repeated applause. Here, for
instance, in Chap. X : "It has, all of it, the description (and we
see clearly the fact itself had) , a kind of pathetic grandeur, sim-
plicity, and rude nobleness ; something Epic or Homeric, with-
out the metre or the singing of Homer, but with all the sincerity,
rugged truth to nature, and much more of piety, devoutness, rev-
erence for what is ever high in this universe, than meets us in
those old Greek Ballad-mongers."
27
Samuel Laing (1780-1868).
It was the work of Samuel Laing that gave Carlyle the mate-
rial for this last-mentioned book."^ Laing's translation of Heims-
kringla bears the date 1844, and although Mr. Dasent's quaint
version of the Prose Edda preceded it by two years, The Sagas
of the Norse Kings was the " epoch-making" book. It is true
that a later version has superseded it in literary^ and scholarly
finish, but Laing's work was a pioneer of sterling intrinsic value,
and many there be that do it homage still. Laing had the laud-
able ambition — so seldom found in these days — " to give a plain,
faithful translation into English of the Heimskringla^ unencum-
bered with antiquarian research, and suited to the plain English
reader." ^ With this work, then, Icelandic lore passes out of the
hands of the antiquarian into the hands of common readers. It
matters little that the audience is even still fit and few ; from this
time on he that runs may read.
For our purpose it will not be necessary to characterize the
translation. Laing commanded an excellent style, and he was
enthusiastic over his work. Indeed, the commonest criticism
passed on the " Preliminary Dissertation" was that the author's
zeal had run away with his good sense. Be that as it may, Laing
called the attention of his readers to the neglect of a literature
and a history w^hich should be England's pride, as Anglo-Saxon
literature and history even then were. The reviews of the time
made it appear as if another Battle of the Books were impending
— Anglo-Saxon versus Icelandic ; a w^riter in the English Re-
view (Vol. 82, p. 316), pro-Saxon in his zeal, admitting at last
that " of none of the children of the Norse, whether Goth or
Frank, Saxon or Scandinavian, have the others any reason to be
ashamed. All have earned the gratitude and admiration of the
world, and their combined or successive efforts have made Eng-
land and Europe what they are."
It is refreshing to come upon new views of Old Norse char-
acter, that recognize " amidst anarchy and bloodshed, redeem-
ing features of kindliness and better feeling which tell of the
1 The Early Kings of Norway bears a later date — 1875 — than the works
we are considering just now, and it is dealt with here only because Car-
lyle's Heroes and Hero -WorsJiif belongs in the decade we are consid-
ering.
2 Chap. V of Preliminary Dissertation.
28
mingled principles that war within our nature for the mastery."
Laing's translation accomplished this for English readers, and
with the years came a deeper knowledge that showed those
touches of tenderness and traits of beauty which, even in 1844,
■were not perceptible to those readers.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (i 807-1 882).
James Russell Lowell (1819-1891).
T/ie Story of the Norse Kings ^ thus translated by an English-
man, suggested to our American poet, Longfellow, a series of
lyrics on King Olaf . The young college professor that wrote
about Frithjof's Saga in the North American Review for
1837, was bound, sooner or later, to come back to the field when
he found that the American reading public would listen to what-
ever songs he sang to them. Before 1850, Longfellow had
written "The Challenge of Thor," a poem w^hich imitated the
form of Icelandic verse and catches much of its spirit. In 1859,
the thought came to him " that a very good poem might be
written on the Saga of King Olaf, who converted the North to
Christianity." Two years later he completed the lyrics that
compose "The Musician's Tale" in The Tales of a Wayside
Inn^ published in 1863, and in this work " The Challenge of
Thor " serves as a prelude. The pieces after this prelude are not
imitations of the Icelandic verse, but are like Tegner's Frithjof's
Saga, in that each new portion has a meter of its own. There
is not, either, a consistent effort to put the flavor of the North into
the poetry, so that, properly speaking, we have here only the re-
telling of an old tale. The ballad fervor and movement are often
perceptible, though nowhere does the poet strike the ringing note
of " The Skeleton in Armor," published in the volume of
1841.
Truth to tell, Longfellow's " Saga of King Olaf" is not a re-
markable work. One who reads the few chapters in Carlyle's
Early Kings of Norway that deal with Olaf Tryggvason gets
more of the fire and spirit of the old saga at every turning. The
poet chooses scenes and incidents very skilfully, but for their proper
presentation a terseness is necessary that is not reconcilable with
frequent rhymes. Compare the saga account with the poem's :
" What is this that has broken? " asked King Olaf. " Norway
from thy hand, King," answered Tamberskelver.
29
' ' What was that ? ' ' said Olaf, standing
On the quarter deck.
' ' Something heard I like the stranding
Of a shattered wreck. ' '
Einar then, the arrow taking
From the loosened string,
Answered, • ' That was Norway breaking
From thy hand, O King ! ' '
Nevertheless, Longfellow is to be thanked for acquainting a
wide circle of readers with the sterling saga literature.
One other American poet was busy with the ancient Northern
literature at this time. James Russell Low^ell wrote one notable
poem that is Old Norse in subject and spirit, ' ' The Voyage to
Vinland." The third part of the poem, " Gudrida's Prophecy,"
hints at Icelandic versification, and the short lines are hammer-
strokes that warm the reader to enthusiasm. Far more of the
spirit of the old literature is in this short poem than is to be
found in the whole of Longfellow's " Saga of King Olaf." The
character of Biorn is well drawn, recalling Bodli, of Morris'
poem, in its principal features. Certainly there is a reflection
here of that Old Norse conception of life which gave to men's
deeds their due reward, and which exalted the power of will.
This poem was begun in 1850, but was not published till 1868.
In Lowell's poems are to be found many figures and allusions
pointing to his familiarity with Icelandic song and story. At
the end of the third strophe of the " Commemoration Ode," for
instance. Truth is pictured as Brynhild,
plumed and mailed,
With sweet, stern face unveiled.
In these borrowings of themes and allusions, Lowell is at one
with most of the poets of the present day. It used to be the
fashion, and is still, for tables of contents in volumes of verse to
show titles like these : "Prometheus"; " Iliad VIII, 542-561 " ;
"Alectryon." Present-day volumes are becoming more and
more besprinkled with titles like these : ' ' Balder the Beautiful " ;
"The Death of Arnkel," etc. In this fact alone is seen the
turn of the tide. Heroes and heroines in dramas and novels are
beginning to bear Old Norse names, even where the setting is
not northern ; witness Sidney Dobell's Balder^ where not even a
single allusion is made to Icelandic matters.
30
Matthew Arnold (1S22-1888).
Matthew Arnold's strong sympathy with noble and virile litera-
ture of whatever age or nation led him in time to Old Norse, and
his poem "Balder Dead" is of distinct importance among the
works of the nineteenth century in English literature. It is an
addition of permanent value to our poetry, because of its marked
originality and its high ethical tone. " Mallet, and his version
of the Edda, is all the poem is based upon," says Arnold.'^ It
is the poet's divinely implanted instinct that gathers from the few
chapters of an old book a knowledge wonderfully full and deep
of the cosmogony and eschatology of the northern nations of
Europe. "Balder Dead" tells the familiar story of the whitest
of the gods, but it also contains the essence of Old Icelandic re-
ligion ; indeed there is no single short work in our language
which gives a tithe of the information about the North, its spirit,
and its philosophy, which this poem of Matthew Arnold's sets
forth. In future days a text-book of original English poems
will be in the hands of our boys and girls which will enable them
to get, through the medium of their own language, the message
and the spirit of foreign literature. Old Nor§e song will need
no other representative that Matthew Arnold's "Balder Dead."
This is an original poem. It does not imitate the verse nor
the word of the older song, but the flavor of it is here. Gray
and his imitators drew from the Icelandic fountain " dreadful
songs " and many poets since have heard no milder note. Matthew
Arnold's instincts were for peace and the arts of peace, and he
found in Balder a type for the ennobling of our own century.
Balder says to his brother who has come to lament that Lok's
machinations will keep the best beloved of the gods in Niflheim :
For I am long since weary of your storm
Of carnage, and find, Hermod, in your life
Something too much of war and broils, which make
Life one perpetual fight, a bath of blood.
Mine eyes are dizzy with the arrowy hail ;
Mine ears are stunn'd with blows, and sick for calm.
Arnold has exalted the Revelator of the Northern mythology
and in magnificent poetry sets forth his apocalyptic vision :
' Letters, Vol. I, p. 55, dated Dec. 12, 1855.
31
Unarm' d, inglorious ; I attend the course
Of ages, and my late return to light,
In times less ahen to a spirit mild.
In new-recover' d seats, the happier day.
Far to the south, beyond the blue, there spreads
Another Heaven, the boundless — no one yet
Hath reach' d it ; there hereafter shall arise *
The second Asgard, with another name.
There re-assembling we shall see emerge
From the bright Ocean at our feet an earth
More fresh, more verdant than the last, with fruits
Self-springing, and a seed of man preserved,
Who then shall live in peace, as now in war. '
Here is the grandest message that the Old Norse religion had
to give, and Matthew Arnold concerned himself with that alone.
It is a far cry from Regner Lodbrog to this. There is a fine
touch in the introduction of Regner into the lamentation of
Balder. Arnold makes the old warrior say of the ruder skalds :
But they harp ever on one string, and wake
Remembrance in our souls of war alone.
Such as on earth we valiantly have waged,
And blood, and ringing blows, and violent death.
But when thou sangest, Balder, thou didst strike
Another note, and, like a bird in spring.
Thy voice of joyance minded us, and youth.
And wife, and children, and our ancient home.
Here is a human Norseman, a figure not often presented in the
versions of the old stories that English poets and romancers have
given us. Arnold did a good service to Icelandic literature when
he put into Regner's mouth mild sentiments and a love for home
and family. The note is not lacking in the ancient literature,
but it took Englishmen three centuries to find it. It was the
scholar, Matthew Arnold, who first repeated the gentler strain in
the rude music of the North, as it was the scholar, Thomas Gray,
who first echoed the "dreadful songs" of that old psalmody.
Gray has all the culture of his age, when it was still possible to
compass all knowledge in one lifetime ; Arnold had all the lit-
erary culture of his fuller century when multiplied sciences force
32
a scholar to be content with one segment of human knowledge.
The former had music and architecture and other sciences among
his accomplishments ; the latter spread out in literature, as
" Sohrab and Rustum," " Empedocles on Etna," " Tristram and
Iseult," as well as " Balder Dead" attest. The quatrain prefixed
to the volume containing the narrative and elegiac poems be-
. tokens what joy Arnold had in his literaty work, and indicates
why these poems cannot fail to live :
What poets feel not, when they make,
A pleasure in creating,
The world in its turn will not take
Pleasure in contemplating.
Balder is the creation of Old Norse poetry that is most popular
with contemporary English writers, and Matthew Arnold first
made him so. As Bugge points out, no deed of his is " celebrated
in song or story. His personality only is described ; of his ac-
tivity in life almost no external trait is recorded. All the stress
is laid upon his death ; and, like Christ, Baldr dies in his youth." '
Sir George Webbe Dasent (1820-1896).
Among the scholars who have labored to give England the
benefit of a fuller and truer knowledge of Norse matters, none
will be remembered more gratefully than Sir George Webbe
Dasent. Known to the reading public most widely by his trans-
lations of the folk-tales of Asbjornsen and Moe, he has still a
claim upon the attention of the students of Icelandic. As we
have seen, he gave out a translation of the Younger Edda in
1842, and during the half century and more that followed he
wrote other works of history and literature connected with our
subject. Two saga translations were published in 186 1 and 1866,
The Story of Burnt Njal, and The Story of Gisli the Out-
law, which will always rank high in this class of literature.
Njala especially is an excellent piece of work, a classic among
translations. The "Prolegomena" is rich in information, and
very little of it has been superseded by later scholarship. In 1887
and 1894 he translated for the Master of the Rolls, The Orkney
Saga and The Saga of Hakon^ the texts of which Vigfusson
had printed in the same series some years before. The interest
^ Home of the Eddie Poems, p. xxxix. London, 1899. David Nutt.
33
of the government in Icelandic annals connected with English
history is indicated in these last publications, and England is
fortunate to have had such enthusiastic scholars as Vigfusson and
Dasent to do the work. These men had been collaborators on
the Cleasby Dictionary, and in this work as in all others Dasent
displayed an eagerness to have his countrymen know how sig-
nificant England's relationship to Iceland was. He was as cer-
tain as Laing had been before him of the preeminence of this
literature among the mediaeval writings. Like Laing, too, he
would have the general reader turn to this body of work " which
for its beauty and richness is worthy of being known to the'
greatest possible number of readers." ^
To mark the progress away f roln the old conception of unmit-
igated brutality these words of Dasent stand here : ^ " The faults
of these Norsemen were the faults of their time ; their virtues they
possessed in larger measure than the rest of their age, and thus
when Christianity had tamed their fury, they became the torch-
bearers of civilization ; and though the plowshare of Destiny,
when it planted them in Europe, uprooted along its furrow many
a pretty flower of feeling in the lands which felt the fury of these
Northern conquerers, their energy and endurance gave a lasting
temper to the West, and more especially to England, which will
wear so long as the world wears, and at the same time implanted
principles of freedom which shall never be rooted out. Such
results are a compensation for many bygone sorrow^s."
Charles Kingsley (i8 19-1875).
In 1874, Charles Kingsley visited America and delivered some
lectures. Among these was one entitled " The First Discovery
of America." This interests us here because it displays an appre-
ciation, if not a deep knowledge, of Icelandic literature. In it
the lecturer commended to Longfellow's attention a ballad sung
in the Faroes, begging him to translate it some day, "as none
but he-can translate it." "It is so sad, that no tenderness less
exquisite than his can prevent its being painful ; and at least in
its denouement^ so naive, that no purity less exquisite than his can
' Introduction to the Cleasby Dictionary.
"Oxford Essays, 1858, p. 214.
34
prevent its being dreadful.'" Later in the lecture he commends
to his hearers the Heimskringla of Snorri Sturluson, the
" Homer of the North." ''
Speaking of the elements that mingled to produce the British
character, Kingsley says: "In manners as well as in religion,
the Norse were humanized and civilized by their contact with
the Celts, both in Scotland and in Ireland. Both peoples had
valor, intellect, imagination : but the Celt had that which the
burly, angular Norse character, however deep and stately, and
however humorous, wanted; namely, music of nature, tender-
ness, grace, rapidity, playfulness ; just the qualities, combining
with the Scandinavian (and in Scotland with the Angle) elements
of character which have produced, in Ireland and in Scotland,
two schools of lyric poetry second to none in the world." ' Over
the page, Kingsley has this to say : " For they were a sad people,
those old Norse forefathers of ours."* Humorous and sad are
not inconsistent words in these sentences ; the Norseman had a
sense of the ludicrous, and could jest grimly in the face of death.
Of the sadness of his life, no one needs to be told who has read
a saga or two. Kingsley says : " There is, in the old sagas,
none of that enjoyment of life which shines out everywhere in
Greek poetry, even through its deepest tragedies. Not in com-
placency with Nature's beauty, but in the fierce struggle with
her wrath, does the Norseman feel pleasure." ^
This lecture shows a deeper acquaintance with Old Norse lit-
erature than Kingsley was willing to acknowledge. Not only
are the stories well chosen which he uses throughout, but the
intuitions are sound, and the inferences based upon them. He
anticipated the work of this investigation in the last words of the
address. He has been telling the fine story of Thormod at
Sticklestead :
' ' I shall not insult your intelligence by any comment or even
epithet of my own. I shall but ask you. Was not this man your
kinsman .' Does not the story sound, allowing for all change of
' Lectures delivered in America in 1874, bj' Charles Kingsley, London.
1875. p. 71.
2 P. 78.
iT. 89.
* P. 90.
^P. 91.
36
manners as well as of time and place, like a scene out of your
own Bret Harte or Colonel John Hay's writings ; a scene of the
dry humor, the rough heroism of your own far West? Yes, as
long as you have your Jem Bludsos and Tom Flynns of Vir-
ginia City, the old Norse blood is surely not extinct, the old
Norse spirit is not dead." ^
Edmund Gosse (1S49- ).
Among contemporary English poets who have taught the world
of readers that things Norse are worthy of attention, is Edmund
Gosse. He has been more intimately connected with the popu-
larization of modern Norwegian literature, notably of Ibsen, but
he has also found in Old Norse story themes for poetic treatment.
We mention "The Death of Arnkel," found in the volume
Firdausi in Exile, more because it shows that our poets are
turning to the gesta islandicorutn for themes, than because it is a
remarkable poem. More pretentious is King Erik, a Tragedy,
London, 1876. Here is a noble drama which displays an inti-
mate acquaintance with the literature that gave it its themes and
inspiration. The author dedicates it to Robert Browning, call-
ing it:
. . . this lyric symbol of my labour,
This antique light that led my dreams so long,
This battered huU of a barbaric tabor.
Beaten to runic song.
I have often thought that fate was veiy unkind to keep Brown-
ing so persistently in the south of Europe, when, in Iceland and
Norway, were mines that he could have worked in to such su-
preme advantage. To be sure his method clashes with the sim-
plicity of the Old Norse manner, but from him we should have
had men and women superb in stature and virility, and perhaps
the Arctic influence would have killed the troublesome tropicalit}'
of his language.
This drama by Gosse is not strictly Icelandic in motive.
Jealousy was not the passion to loosen the tongue of the saga-
man, and in so far as that is the theme of " King Erik," the play
is not Old Norse in origin. Christian material, too, has been
introduced that gives a modern tinge to the drama, but there is
1 P. 96.
36
enough of the genuine saga spirit to warrant attention to it here.
Something more than the names is Icelandic. Here is a woman,
Botilda, with strength of character enough to recall a Brynhild
or a Bergthora. Gisli is the foster-brother that takes up the
blood-feud for Grimur. Adalbjorg and Svanhilda are the
whisperers of slander and the workers of ill. Marcus is the
skald who is making a poem about the king. Here are customs
and beliefs distinctly Norse :
I loved him from the first,
And so the second midnight to the cliff
We went. I mind me how the round moon rose,
And how a great whale in the offing plunged.
Dark on the golden circle. There we cut
A space of turf, and lifted it, and ran
Our knife-points sharp into our arms, and drew
Blood that dripped into the warm mould and mixed.
So there under the turf our plighted faith
Starts in the dew of grasses.
(Act. IV, Sc. II.)
But all day long I hear amid the crowds,
A voice that murmurs in a monotone.
Strange, warning words that scarcely miss the ear,
Yet miss it altogether.
Botilda.
Oh ! God grant.
You be not fey, nor truly near your end !
(Act. IV, Sc. III.)
Although this work is dramatic in form, it is not so in spirit.
The true dramatist would have put such an incident as the swear-
ing of brotherhood into a scene, instead of into a speech. This
effort is, however, the nearest approach to a drama in English
founded on saga material. It is curious that our poets have in-
clined to every form but the drama in reproducing Old Norse
literature. It is not that saga-stuff is not dramatic in possibilities.
Ewald and Oehlenschlager have used this material to excellent
effect in Danish dramas. Had the sagas been accessible to
Englishmen in Shakespeare's time, we should certainly have had
dramas of Icelandic life.
IV.
BY THE HAND OF THE MASTER.
Time has brought us to the man whose work in this field needs
no apology. The writer whom we consider next contributed
almost as much material to the English treasury of Northern gold
as did all the writers we have so far considered. Were it not
for William Morris, the examination that we are making would
not not be worth while. The name literature^ in its narrow
sense, belongs to only a few of the writings that we have ex-
amined up to this point, but what we are now to inspect deserves
that title without the shadovsf of a doubt. For that reason we set
in a separate chapter the examination of Morris' Old Norse
adaptations and creations.
William Morris (i 834-1 896).
The biographer of William Morris fixes 1 868 as the beginning
of the poet's Icelandic stories.^ Eirikr Magnusson, an Icelander,
was his guide, and the pupil made rapid progress. Dasent's
work had drawn Morris' attention to the sagas, and within a few
months most of the sagas had been read in the original. Although
The Saga of Gunnlang Worm-tongue was published in the
Fortnightly Review^ for January, 1869, the Grettis Saga, of
April, was the first published book on an Old Norse subject.
The next year gave the Volsunga Saga. In 187 1, Morris made
a journey through Iceland, the fruits of which were afterwards
seen in many a noble work. In 1875, Three Northern Love
Stories was published, and, in 1877, The Story of Sigurd the
Volsung and the Fall of the Niblungs. More than ten years
passed before he turned again to Icelandic work, the Romances of
the years of 1889 to 1896 showing signs of it, and the translations in
the Saga Library, "Howard the Halt," "The Banded JVIen,"
Eyrbyggja and Heimskringla of 1891-95. These contribu-
' The Life of William Morris, by J. W. Mackail. London, New York,
Bombay. Vol. I, p. 200.
37
38
tions to the subject of our examination are no less valuable than
voluminous, and we make no excuses for an extended considera-
tion of them. They deserve a wider public than they have yet
attained.
I.
T/ie Story of Grettir the Strong is the title of Morris and
Magnusson's version of the Grettis Saga. The version im-
presses the reader as one made with loving care by artistic hands.
Certainly English readers will read no other translation of this
work, for this one is satisfactory as a version and as an art-work.
English readers will here get all the flavor of the original that it
is possible to get in a translation, and those who can read Ice-
landic if put to it, will prefer to get Grettla through Morris
and Magnusson. All the essentials are here, if not all the nu-
ances.
The reader unfamiliar with sagas will need a little patience
with the genealogies that crop out in every chapter. The saga-
man has a squirrel-like agility in cliinbing family trees, and he is
well acquainted with their interlocking branches. There are
chapters in the Grettis Saga where this vanity runs riot, and
makes us suspect that Iceland differed little from a countr}- town
of to-day in its love for gossip about the family of neighbors
whose names happen to come into the conversation. If the
reader will persevere through the early chapters, until Grettir com-
mands exclusive attention, he will come to a drama which has
not many peers in literature. The outlaw kills a man in every
other chapter, but this record is no vulgar list of brutal fights.
Not inhuman nature, but human nature is here shown, human
nature struggling with unrelenting fate, making a grand fight,
and coming to its end because it must, but without ignomin^•.
How fine a touch it is that refuses to the outlaw's murderer the
price set upon Grettir's head, because the getting of it was
through a " nithings-deed," the murder of a dying man! Wil-
liam Morris was most felicitous in envoys and dedicating poems,
and in the sonnet prefixed to this translation he was particularly
happy. The first eight lines describe the hero of the saga — the
last six lines the significance of this literary creation :
39
A life scarce worth the living, a pooi fame
Scarce worth the winning, in a wretched land,
Where fear and pain go upon either hand.
As toward the end men fare without an aim
Unto the dull grey dark from whence they came :
Let them alone, the unshadowed sheer rocks stand
Over the twilight graves of that poor band,
Who count so little in the great world' s game !
Nay, with the dead 1 deal not ; this man lives.
And that which carried him through good and ill.
Stern against fate while his voice echoed still
From rock to rock, now he lies silent, strives
With wasting time, and through its long lapse gives
Another friend to me, life's void to fill.
2.
In the three volumes of The Earthly Paradise^ published by
William Morris in 1868-1870, there are three poems which hail
from Old Norse originals. They are " The Land East of the
Sun and West of the Moon," and " The Lovers of Gudrun," in
Vol. II, and " The Fostering of Aslaug," in Vol. III. Of these
" The Lovers of Gudrun " forms a class by itself ; it is a poem
to be reckoned with when the dozen greatest poems of the cen-
tury are listed. The late Laureate may have equalled it in the
best of the Idylls of the King; but he never excelled it. Let us
look at it in detail.
First, be it said that "The Lovers of Gudrun" overtops all
the other poems in The Earthly Paradise. It would be pos-
sible to prove that Morris was at his best when he worked with
Old Norse material, but that task shall not detain us now. It is
enough to note that the " Prologue " to The Earthly Paradise,
called " The Wanderers," makes the leader of these wanderers,
who turn story-tellers when they reach the city by " the borders
of the Grecian sea," a Norseman. Born in Byzantium of a
Greek mother, he claimed Norway as his home, and on his
father's death returned to his kin. His speech to the Elder of
the City reveals a touching loyalty to his father's home and tradi-
tions :
But when I reached one dying autumn-tide
My uncle's dwelling near the forest-side,
And saw the land so scanty and so bare,
40
And all the hard things men contend with there,
A little and unworthy land it seemed,
And yet the more of Asagard I dreamed,
And worthier seemed the ancient faith of praise.
Here is the man, William Morris, in perfect miniature. Mod-
ern life and training had given him a speech and aspect quite
suave and cultured, but the blood that flowed in his veins was
red, and the tincture of iron was in it. In religion, in art, in
poetry, in economics, he loved the past better than the present,
though he was never unconscious of " our glorious gains." In
all departments of thought the scanty, the bare, the hard, the un-
worthy, drew first his attention and then his love and enthusiastic
praise. And so perhaps it is explained that of all the poems in
The Earthly Paradise^ the one indited first in the scarred and
dreadful land where neither wheat nor wine is at home, shall be
the finest in this latter-day retelling.
The first seventy years of the thirteenth century were the blos-
soming time of the historic saga in Iceland, and those writings
that record the doings of the families of the land form, with the
old songs and the best of the kingly sagas, the flower of North-
ern literature. These family records never extend over more
than one generation, and sometimes they deal with but a few
years. They are half-way between romance and history, \vith
the balance oftenest in favor of truth. In this group are found
Egils Saga^ known at second hand to Warton, the Eyrbyggja
Saga, translated by Walter Scott^ and the Laxdcela Saga.
It is the Laxdoela Saga that gives the story told by Morris in
" The Lovers of Gudrun." Among sagas it is famous for its
fine portrayal of character.
The saga and the poem tell the story of two neighboring
farms, Herdholt and Bathsted, whose sons and daughters work
out a dire tragedy. Kiartan and Bodli are the son and foster-son
of the first house, and Gudrun is the daughter of the second.
These are the principal personages in the drama, though the
list of the other dramatis persoitce is a long one. Not only in
the name of its heroine does the story suggest the Nibelungen-
lied. The machinery of the Norse stories resembles the German
story's in many of its parts. In this version of Morris, the main
features of the saga are kept, and distracting details are properly
41
subordinated to the principal interest. Through the nineteen
divisions of this story the interest moves rapidly, and wonder as
to the issue is never lost. As a story-teller, Morris is distinctly
powerful in this poem, and all the qualities that endear the story-
teller to us are here found joined to many that make the poet a
favorite with us. There are no lyrics in the poem — the original
saga was without the song-snatches that are often found in sagas —
but there are dramatic scenes that recall the power of the Master-
poet. Least of all the poems in the Earthly Paradise does
"The Lovers of Gudrun" show the Chaucerian influence, and
the reader must be captious indeed who complains of the length
of this story.
To the unenlightened reader this poem reveals no traits that are
un-English. What there is of Old Norse flavor here is purely
spiritual. The original story being in prose, no attempt could
be made to keep original characteristics in verse-form. So " The
Lovers of Gudrun " can stand on its own merits as an English
poem ; no excuses need be made for it on the plea that it is a
translation.
Local color is not laid on the canvas after the figures have been
painted, but all the tints in the persons and the things are grandly
Norse. This story is a true romance, in that the scene is far
removed from the present day, and the atmosphere is very different
from our own. This story is a true picture of life, in that it sets
forth the doings of men and women in the power of the master
passion. And so for the purposes of literature this poem is not
Norse, or rather, it is more than Norse, it is universal. Now
and then, to be sure, the displaced Norse ideals are set forth in
the poem, but in such wise that we almost regret that the old
order has passed away. The Wanderer who tells the tale as-
sures his listeners of the truth of it in these last words of the in-
terlude between " The Story of Rhodope " and " The Lovers of
Gudrun " :
Know withal that we
Have ever deemed this tale as true to be,
As though those very Dwellers in Laxdale,
Risen from the dead had told us their own tale ;
Who for the rest while yet they dwelt on earth
Wearied no God with prayers for more of mirth
Than dying men have ; nor were ill-content
Because no God beside their sorrow went
42
Turning to flowery sward the rock-strewn way,
Weakness to strength, or darkness into day.
Therefore, no marvels hath my tale to tell,
But deals with such things as men know too well ;
All that I have herein your hearts to move.
Is but the seed and fruit of bitter love.
It is aside from our purpose to tell this story here. The more
we study this marvelous work, the more it is impressed upon us
that in the reign of love all men and all literatures are one. To
the Englishman this description of an Iceland maiden is no
stranger than it was to the men who sat about the spluttering fire
in the Icelander's hall. It is the form of Gudrun that is here
described :
That spring was she just come to her full height,
Low-bosomed yet she was, and slim and light.
Yet scarce might she grow fairer from that day ;
Gold were the locks wherewith the wind did play,
Finer than silk, waved softly like the sea
After a three days' calm, and to her knee
Wellnigh they reached ; fair were the white hands laid
Upon the door posts where the dragons played ;
Her brow was smooth now, and a smile began
To cross her delicate mouth, the snare of man.
(Earthly Paradise, Vol. II, p. 247.)
Not less accustomed are we to such heroes as Kiartan :
And now in every mouth was Kiartan' s name.
And daily now must Gudrun' s dull ears bear
Tales of the prowess of his youth to hear.
While in his cairn forgotten lay her love.
For this man, said they, all men's hearts did move.
Nor yet might envy cling to such an one,
So far beyond all dwellers 'neath the sun ;
Great was he, yet so fair of face and limb
That all folk wondered much, beholding him,
How such a man could be ; no fear he knew.
And all in manly deeds he could outdo ;
Fleet-foot, a swimmer strong, an archer good,
Keen-eyed to know the dark waves' changing mood ;
Sure on the crag, and with the sword so skilled.
That when he played therewith the air seemed filled
43
With light of gleaming blades ; therewith was he
Of noble speech, though says not certainly
My tale, that aught of his he left behind
With rhyme and measure deftly intertwined.
(P. 266.)
The Old Norse touch here is in the last three lines which inti-
mate that the warrior was often a bard; but be it "remembered
that the Elizabethan warrior could turn a sonnet, too.
We have said that the Laxd(xla Saga is famous for its por-
trayal of character. This English version falls not at all below
the original in this quality. The lines already quoted show
Gudrun and Kiartan as to exterior. But this is a drama of flesh
and blood creations, and they are men and women that move
through it, not puppets. Souls are laid bare here, in quivering,
pulsating agony. The tremendous figure of this story is not
Kiartan, nor Gudrun, nor Refna, but Bodli, and certainly Eng-
lish narrative poetry has no second creation like to him. The
mind reverts to Shakespeare to find fit companionship for Bodli
in poetry, and to George Eliot and Thomas Hardy in prose.
The suggestion of Shakespearean qualities in George Eliot has
been made by several great critics, among them Edmond Scherer ; ^
in Hardy and Morris, here, we find the same soul-searching
powers. These writers have created sufferers of titanic great-
ness, and in the presence of their tragedies we are dumb.
An English artist has made Napoleon's voyage on H. M. S.
Bellerofhon to his prison-isle a picture that the memory refuses
to forget. The picture of Bodli as he sails back to Iceland,
which, though his home, is to be his prison and his death, is no
less impressive :
Fair goes the ship that beareth out Christ's truth
Mingled of hope, of sorrow, and of ruth.
And on the prow Bodli the Christian stands.
Sunk deep in thought of all the many lands
The world holds, and the folk that dwell therein,
And wondering why that grief and rage and sin
Was ever wrought ; but wondering most of all
Why such wild passion on his heart should fall.
(P. 294.)
^Edmond Scherer. Essays on English Literature, p. 309.
44
Here we have the poet's conception — and the sagaman's — of
Bodli — a man in the grip of terrible Fate, who can no more
swerve from the paths she marks out for him than he can add a
cubit to his stature. The Greek tragedy embodies this idea, and
Old Norse literature is full of it. Thomas Hardy gives it later
in his contemporary novels. We sympathize with Bodli's fate
because his agony is so terrible, and we call him the most strik-
ing figure in this story. But the others suffer, too, Gudrun,
Kiartan, Refna ; they make a stand against their woe, and utter
brave words in the face of it. Only Bodli floats downward with
the tide, unresisting. Guest prophesies bitter things for Gudrun,
but adds :
Be merry yet ! these things shall not be all
That unto thee in this thy life shall fall.
(P. 2S4.)
And Gudrun takes heart. When Thurid tells her brother
Kiartan that Gudrun has married another, his joy is shivered
into atoms before him. But he can say, even then :
Now is this world clean changed for me
In this last minute, yet indeed I see
That still it will go on for all my pain ;
Come then, my sister, let us back again ;
I must meet folk, and face the life beyond,
And, as I may, walk 'neath the dreadful bond
Of ugly pain — such men our fathers were.
Not lightly bowed by any weight of care.
(P.3II-)
And Kiartan does his work in the world. Poor Refna, when
she has married Kiartan hears women talking of tlie love that
still is between Gudrun and Kiartan. She goes to Kiartan with
the story, beginning with words whose pathos must conquer the
most stoical of readers :
Indeed of all thy grief I knew.
But deemed if still thou saw'st me kind and true.
Not asking too much, yet not failing aught
To show that not far off need love be sought,
If thou shouldst need love — if thou sawest all this.
Thou wouldst not grudge to show me what a bliss
Thy whole love was, by giving unto me
As unto one who loved thee silently.
45
Now and again the broken crumbs thereof :
Alas ! I, having then no part in love,
Knew not how naught, naught can allay the soul
Of that sad thirst, but love untouched and whole !
Kinder than e'er I durst have hoped thou art,
Forgive me then, that yet my craving heart
Is so unsatisfied ; I know that thou
Art fain to dream that I am happy now,
And for that seeming ever do I strive ;
Thy half-love, dearest, keeps me still alive
To love thee ; and I bless it — but at whiles, —
(P- 343.)
And thus she gains strength to live her life.
Here, then, in Bodli, is another of the great tragic figures in
literature — a sick man. There are many of them, even in the
highest rank of literary creations, Hamlet, Lear, Othello, Mac-
beth ! Wrong-headed, defective as they are, we w^ould not have
them otherwise. The pearl of greatest price is the result of an
abnormal or morbid process.
Bodli comes to us from Icelandic literature, and in that fact we
note the solidarity of poetic geniuses. Not only is the great
figure of Bodli proof of this solidarity, but many other features
of this poem prove it. " Lively feeling for a situation and power
to express it constitute the poet," said Goethe. There are dra-
matic situations in "The Lovers of Gudrun" which hold the
reader in a breathless state till the last word is said, and then
leave him marveling at the imagination that could conceive the
scene, and the power that could express it. There are gentler
scenes, too, in the poem, where beauty and grace are conceived
as fair as ever poet dreamed, and the workmanship is thoroughly
adequate. As an example of the first, take the scene of Bodli's
mourning over Kiartan's dead body. It is here that we get that
knowledge of Bodli's woe that robs us of a cause against him.
What agony is that which can speak thus over the body of the
dead rival !
. . . Didst thou quite
Know all the value of that dear delight
As I did ? Kiartan, she is changed to thee ;
Yea, and since hope is dead changed too to me,
What shall we do, if, each of each forgiven.
We three shall meet at last in that fair heaven
46
The new faith tells of? Thee and God I pray
Impute it not for sin to me to-day,
If no thought I can shape thereof but this :
O friend, O friend, when thee I meet in bliss,
Wilt thou not give my love Gudrun to me,
Since now indeed thine eyes made clear can see
That I of all the world must love her most ?
(P. 368.)
Examples of the gentler scenes are scattered lavishly through-
out the poem and it is not necessary to enumerate.
One other sigh that the Icelandic sagaman's art was kin to the
English poet's. The last line of this poem is given thus by
Morris :
I did the worst to him I loved the most.
These are the very words of Gudrun in the saga, and summing
up as they do her opinion of Kiartan, they stand as a model of
that compression which is so admired in our poetry. Many such
multum. in farvo lines are found in Morris' poem, and at times
they have a beauty that is marvelous. Joined with this quality
is the special merit of Morris — picturesqueness, and so the reader
often feels, when he has finished a book by Morris, like the Cook
tourist after he has "done" a country of Europe — it must be
done again and again to give it its due.
Of the other two Old Norse poems in The Earthly Paradise
not much need be said. " The Land East of the Sun and West
of the Moon " is a fairy tale, in the strain of Morris' prose ro-
mances. It was suggested by Thorpe's Tule-tide Stories, the
tale coming from the Volundar Saga. There is a witchery
about it that makes it pleasant reading in a dreamy hour, -but ex-
cept the names and a few scenes about the farmstead, there is
nothing Icelandic about it. The virile element of the best Ice-
landic literature is wanting here, and the hero's excuse for leaving
weapons at home when he goes to his watch is not at all natural :
Withal 1 shall not see
Men-folk belike, but faerie.
And all the arms within the seas
Should help me naught to deal with these ;
Rather of such love were I fain
As fell to Sigurd Fafnir's-bane
When of the dragon's heart he ate.
(Vol. II, p. 33.)
47..
This passage is nominally in the same meter as the opening
lines of the poem :
In this your land there once did dwell
A certain carle who lived full well,
And lacked few things to make him glad ;
And three fair sons this goodman had.
According to old time English prosody, it is the same, too, as
the meter of Scott's Marmion !
In the passages quoted from " The Lovers of Gudrun" we see
a measure called the same as that of Pope's Essay on Man!
Not seldom in " The Lovers " do we forget that the lines are
rhymed in twos; indeed, often we do not note the rhyme at all.
We are sometimes tempted to think that in this piece, if not in
" The Land East of the Sun," rhyme might have been dispensed
with altogether, since it often forces archaic words and expres-
sions into use. But it is to be said generally of Morris's manage-
ment of the meter in the Old Norse pieces, that it was adequate
to gain his end always, whether that end was to tell an Old Norse
story in English, or to carry over an Old Norse spirit into Eng-
lish. Of this second achievement we shall speak further in con-
sidering Sigurd the Volsung.
There is one more tale in The Earthly Paradise which origi-
nated in Norse legend. "The Fostering of Aslaug " is drawn
from Thorpe's Northern Mythology^ which epitomizes older
sources. Aslaug is the daughter of Iceland's great hero, Sig-
urd, and Iceland's great heroine, Brynhild, and her life is set
down in this poem most beautifully. Again we note that the
added touches of later poets fail to leave the sense of the strenu-
ous in the picture. Aslaug is like a favorite representation of
Brynhild that we have seen, a lily-maid in aspect, or a Margue-
rite. Her mother's masculinity is gone, and with it the Old
Norse flavor. It is the privilege of our age to enjoy both the
virility of the Old Norse and the delicacy of the mediaeval con-
ceptions, and William Morris has caught both.
3-
In the opening lines of " The Fostering of Aslaug," our poet
wrote his doubts about his ability to sing the life of Sigurd in be-
fitting manner. At that time he said :
■48
But now have I no heart to raise
That mighty sorrow laid asleep,
That love so sweet, so strong and deep.
That as ye hear the wonder told
In those few strenuous words of old.
The whole world seems to rend apart
When heart is torn away from heart.
(Vol. Ill, p. 28.)
It is a common complaint against the poetry of William Morris
that it is too long-winded. Each to his taste in this matter, but
we beg to call attention to one line in the above passage :
In those few strenuous vifords of old.
Whatever may have been Morris' tendency when he w^rote his
own poetry, he knew when concision was a virtue in the poetry
of others. There is no better description of the Volsunga Saga
than the above line, and William Morris gave the English people
a literal version of the saga, if mayhap that strenuous paucity
might translate the old spirit. But, as if he knew that many
readers would fail to make much of this version, he tried again
on a larger scale, and the great volume Sigurd the Volsunga
epic in character and proportions, was the result. Of these two
we shall now speak.
The Volsunga Saga was published in 1870, only two years
after Morris had begun to study Icelandic with Eirikr Magnusson.
The latter's name is on the title page as the first of the two co-
translators. The Saga was supplemented by certain songs from
the Elder Edda which were introduced by the translators at
points where they would come naturally in the story. The
work, both in prose and verse, is well done, and the attempt was
successful to make, as the preface proposes, the " rendering close
and accurate, and, if it might be so, at the same time, not over
prosaic." The last two paragraphs of this preface are particu-
larly interesting to one who is tracing the influence of Old Norse
literature on English literature, because they are words with
power, that have stirred men and will stir men to learn more
about a wonderful land and its lore. We copy them entire :
"As to the literary quality of this work we might say much,
but we think we may well trust the reader of poetic insight to
break through whatever entanglement of strange manners or un-
49
used element may at first trouble him, and to meet the nature and
beauty with which it is filled : we cannot doubt that such a
reader will be intensely touched by finding, amidst all its wild-
ness and remoteness, such startling realism, such subtilty, such
close sympathy with all the passions that may move himself
to-day.
" In conclusion, we must again say how strange it seems to us,
that this Volsung Tale, which is in fact an unversified poem,
should never before have been translated into English. For this
is the Great Story of the North, which should be to all our race
what the Tale of Troy was to the Greeks — to all our race first,
and afterwards, when the change of the world has made our
race nothing more than a name of what has been — a story too —
then should it be to those that come after us no less than the Tale
of Troy has been to us."
Morris wrote a prologue in verse for this volume, and it is an
exquisite poem, such as only he seemed able to indite. So often
does the reader of Morris come upon gems like this, that one is
tempted to rail against the common ignorance about him :
O hearken, ye who speak the English Tongue,
How in a waste land ages long ago,
The very heart of the North bloomed into song
After long brooding o'er this tale of woe !
Yea, in the first gray dawning of our race,
This ruth-crowned tangle to sad hearts was dear.
So draw ye round and hearken, English Folk,
Unto the best tale pity ever wrought !
Of how from dark to dark bright Sigurd broke.
Of Brynhild' s glorious soul with love distraught,
Of Gudrun's weary wandering unto naught.
Of utter love defeated utterly.
Of Grief too strong to give Love time to die !
4-
Six years later, in 1877 (English edition), Morris published
the long poem. The Story of Sigurd the Volsung and The Fall
of the Ntblungs, and in it gave the peerless crown of all Eng-
50
lish poems springing from Old Norse sources. The poet con-
sidered this his most important work, and he was prouder of it
than of any other literary work that he did. One w^ho studies it
can understand this pride, but he cannot understand the neglect
by the reading public of this remarkable poem. The history of
book-selling in the last decade shows strange revivals of interest
in authors long dead ; it will be safe to prophesy such a revival
for William Morris, because valuable treasures will not always
remain hidden. In his case, however, it will not be a revival,
because there has not been an awakening yet. That awakening
must come, and thousands will see that William Morris was a
great poet who have not yet heard of his name. Let us look at
his greatest work with some degree of minuteness.
The opening lines are a good model of the meter, and we find
it different from any that we have considered so far. There are
certain peculiarities about it that make it seem a perfect medium
for translating the Old Norse spirit. Most of these peculiarities
are in the opening lines, and so we may transfer them to this
page : ^
There was a dwelling of Kings ere the world was waxen old ;
Dakes were the door- wards there, and the roofs were thatched with
gold ;
Earls were the wrights that wrought it, and silver nailed its doors ;
Earls' wives were the weaving-women, queens' daughters strewed its
floors,
And the masters of its song-craft were the mightiest men that cast
The sails of the storm of battle adown the bickering blast.
Everybody knows that alliteration was a principle of Icelandic
verse. It strikes the ear that hears Icelandic poetry for the first
time — or the eye that sees it, since most of us read it silently — as
unpleasantly insistent, but on fuller acquaintance, we lose this
sense of obtrusiveness. Morris, in this poem, uses alliteration,
but so skilfully that only the reader that seeks it discovers it. A
less superb artist would have made it stick out in every line, so
that the device would be a hindrance to the story-telling. As it
is, nowhere in the more than nine thousand lines of Sigurd
the Volsung is this alliteration an excrescence, but everywhere
it is woven into the grand design of a fabric vvhich is the richer
for its foreign workmanship.
'Citations are from the 3d edition. Boston. 1881.
51
Notice that duke and battle and master are the only words not
thoroughly Teutonic. This overwhelming predominance of the
Anglo-Saxon element over the French is in keeping with the
original of the story. Of course it is an accident that so small a
proportion of Latin derivatives is found in these six lines, but
the fact remains that Morris set himself to tell a Teutonic story
in Teutonic idiom. That idiom is not very strange to present-
day readers, indeed we may say it has but a' fillip of strangeness.
Archaisms are characteristic of poetic diction, and those found in
this poem that are not common to other poetry are used to gain
an Old Norse flavor. The following words taken from Book I
of the poem are the only unfamiliar ones : benight, meaning
" at night " ; "so win the long years over " ; eel-grig ; sackless ;
bursten,, a participle. The compounds door-ward and song-
craft are representative of others that are sprinkled in fair num-
ber through the poem. They are the best that our language can
do to reproduce the fine combinations that the Icelandic language
formed so readily. English lends itself well to this device, as
the many compounds show that Morris took from common usage.
Such words as roof-tree, song-craft, empty-handed, grave-
mound, store-house, taken at random from the pages of this
poem, show that the genius of our language permits such forma-
tions. When Morris carries the practice a little further, and
makes for his poem such words as door-ward, chance-hap,
slumber-tide, troth-word, God-home, and a thousand others, he
is not taking liberties with the language, and he is using a power-
ful aid in translating the Old Norse spirit.
One more peculiar characteristic of Icelandic is admirably ex-
hibited in this poem. We have seen that Warton recognized in
the " Runic poets " a warmth of fancy which expressed itself in
" circumlocution and comparisons, not as a matter of necessity,
but of choice and skill." Certainly Morris in using these cir-
cumlocutions in Sigurd the Volsung, has exercised remarkable
skill in weaving them into his story. Like the alliterations, they
are parji of an harmonious design. Examples abound, like :
Adown unto the swan-bath the Volsung Children ride ;
and this other for the same thing, the sea :
While sleepeth the fields of the fishes amidst the summer-tide.
52
Still others for the water are swan-mead^ and " bed-gear of the
swan."
' ' The serpent of death" and war-Jlame, for sword ; earth-
bone^ for rock ; Jight-sheaves^ for armed hosts ; seaburg^ for
boats, are other striking examples.
So much for the mechanical details of this poem. Its literary
features are so exceptional that we must examine them at length.
Book I is entitled " Sigmund" and the description is set at the
head of it. " In this book is told of the earlier days of the Vol-
sungs, and of Sigmund the father of Sigurd, and of his deeds,
and of how he died while Sigurd was yet unborn in his mother's
womb."
There are many departures from the Volsunga Saga in this
poetic version, and all seem to be accounted for by a desite to im-
press present-day readers with this story. The poem begins
with Volsung, omitting, therefore, the marvelous birth of that
king and the oath of the unborn child to " flee in fear from
neither fire nor the sword." The ?aga makes the wolf kill one
of Volsung's sons every night ; the poem changes the number to
two. A magnificent scene is invented by Morris in the midnight
visit of Signy to the wood where her brothers had been slain.
She speaks to the brother that is left, desiring to know what he
is doing :
O yea, I am living indeed, and this labor of mine hand
Is to bury the bones of the Volsungs ; and lo, it is well nigh done.
So draw near, Volsung's daughter, and pile we many a stone
Where lie the gray wolf's gleanings of what was once so good.
(P- 23.)
The dialogue of brother and sister is a mighty conception, and
surely the old Icelanders would have called Morris a rare singer.
Sigmund tells the story of the deaths of his brothers, adding :
But now was I wroth with the Gods, that had made the Volsungs for
nought ;
And I said : in the Day of their Doom a man's help shall they miss.
(P. 24.)
But Signy is reconciled to the workings of Fate :
I am nothing so wroth as thou art with the ways of death and hell.
For thereof had I a deeming when all things were seeming well.
53
The day to come shall set their woes right :
There as thou drawest thy sword, thou shalt think- of the days that were
And the foul shall still seem foul, and the fair shall still seem fair ;
But thy wit shall then be awakened, and thou shalt know indeed
Why the brave man's spear is broken, and his war shield fails at need ;
Why the loving is unbeloved ; why the just man falls from his state ;
Why the liar gains in a day what the soothfast strives for late.
Yea, and thy deeds shalt thou know, and great shall thy gladness be ;
As a picture all of gold thy life-days shalt thou see,
And know that thou wert a God to abide through the hurry and haste ;
A God in the golden hall, a God in the rain-swept waste,
A God in the battle triumphant, a God on the heap of the slain :
And thine hope shall arise and blossom, and thy love shall be quickened
again :
And then shalt thou see before thee the face of all earthly ill ;
Thou shalt drink of the cup of awakening that thine hand hath holpen
to fill ;
By the side of the sons of Odin shalt thou fashion a tale to be told
In the hall of the happy Baldur.
(P. 25.)
In this wise one Christian might hearten another to accept the
dealings of Providence to-day. While we do not think that a
worshipper of Odin would have spoken all these words, they are
not an undue exaggeration of the noblest traits of the old Ice-
landic religion.
The poem does not record the death of Siggeir's and Signy's
son, though the saga does. Morris adds a touch when he makes
the imprisoned men exult over the sword that Signy drops into
their grave, and he also puts into the mouth of Siggeir in the
burning hall words that the saga does not contain. The poem
says that the women of the Gothf oik were permitted to retire from
the burning hall, but the saga has no such statement. The war of
foul words between Granmar and Sinfjotli is left in the saga, and
the cause of Gudrod's death is changed from rivalry over a
woman to anger over a division of war booty. In Sigmund's
lament over his childlessness we have another of the poet's addi-
tions, and certainly we find no fault with the liberty :
The tree was stalwart, but its boughs are old and worn.
Where now are the children departed, that amidst my life were born ?
I know not the men about me, and they know not of my ways :
54
I am nought but a picture of battle, and a song for the people to praise.
I must strive with the deeds of my kingship, and yet when mine hour
is come
It shall meet me as glad as the goodman when he bringeth the last
load home.
(P. 56.)
When the great hero dies, Morris puts into his mouth another
of the magnificent speeches that are the glory of this poem.
Four lines from it must suffice :
When the gods for one deed asked me I ever gave them twain ;
Spendthrift of glory I was, and great was my life-day's gain.
Our wisdom and valour have kissed, and thine eyes shall see the fruit.
And the joy for his days that shall be hath pierced my heart to the
root.
(P. 62.)
It appears from this study of Book I that Sigurd the Volsung
has adapted the saga story to our civilization and our art, hold-
ing to the best of the old and supplementing it by new that is
ever in keeping with the old. Other instances of this eclectic
habit may be seen in the other three books, but we shall quote
from these for other purposes.
Book II is entitled " Regin." " Now this is the first book of
the life and death of Sigurd the Volsung, and therein is told of
the birth of him, and of his dealings with Regin the Master of
Masters, and of his deeds in the waste places of the earth."
Morris was deeply read in Old Norse literature, and out of his
stores of knowledge he brought vivifying details for this poem.
Such, for instance, is the description of Sigurd's eyes, not found
just here in the saga :
In the bed there lieth a man-child, and his eyes look straight on the
sun.
Yet they shrank in their rejoicing before the eyes of the child.
In the naming of the child by an ancient name, the meaning
of that name is indicated :
O Sigurd, Son of the Volsungs, O Victory yet to be !
The festivities over the birth of the child are wonderfully
55
described in the brief lines, and they are a picture out of another
book than the saga :
Earls think of marvellous stories, and along the golden strings
FHt words of banded brethren and names of war- fain Kings.
Over and over again in this poem Morris records the Icelanders'
desire "to leave a tale to tell," and here are Sigurd's words to
Regin who has been egging him on to deeds :
Yet I know that the world is wide, and filled with deeds unwrought ;
And for e'en such work was I fashioned, lest the songcraft come to
nought.
When the harps of God-home tinkle, and the Gods are at stretch to
hearken :
Lest the hosts of the Gods be scanty when their day hath begun to
darken. (P. 82.)
In Book II we have other great speeches that the poet has put
into the mouth of his characters with little or no justification in
the original saga. Chap. XIV of the saga contains Regin's tale
of his brothers, and of the gold called " Andvari's Hoard,"
and that tale is severely brief and plain. The account in the
poem is expanded greatly, and the conception of Regin materially
altered. In the saga he was not the discontented youngest son of
his father, prone to talk of his woes and to lament his lot. In
the poem he does this in so eloquent a fashion that almost we are
persuaded to sympathize with him. Certainly his lines were hard,
to have outlived his great deeds, and to hear his many inventions
ascribed to the gods. The speech of the released Odin to Reid-
mar is modeled on Job's conception of omnipotence, and it is
one of the memorable parts of this book. Gripir's prophecy,
too, is a majestic work, and its original was three sentences in
the saga and the poem Grifisspd in the heroic songs of the
Edda. Here Morris rises to the heights of Sigurd's greatness :
Sigurd, Sigurd ! O great, O early born !
O hope of the Kings first fashioned ! O blossom of the morn !
Short day and long remembrance, fair summer of the North !
One day shall the worn world wonder how first thou wentest forth !
(P. III.)
Those who have read William Morris know that he is a master
of nature description. The " Glittering Heath " offered a fine
56
opportunity for this sort of work, and in this piece we have
another departure from the saga. Morris made hundreds of
pictures in this poem, but the pages describing the journey to
the " Glittering Heath " are packed with them to an extraordinary
degree. Here is Iceland in very fact, all dust and ashes to the
eye :
More changeless than mid-ocean, as fruitless as its iloor.
We confess that there is something in the scene that holds us,
all shorn of beauty though it is. We do not want to go the
length of Thomas Hardy, however, who, in that wonderful first
chapter of The Return of the Native has a similar heath to
describe. " The new vale of Tempe," says he, " may be a
gaunt waste in Thule : human souls may find themselves in closer
and closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness
distasteful to our race when it was young. . . . The time seems
near, if it has not actually arrived, when the mournful sublimity of
a moor, a sea, or a mountain, will be all of nature that is absolutely
consonant with the moods of the more thinking among mankind.
And ultimately, to the commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may
become what the vineyards and myrtlegardens of South Europe
are to him now." Is it not a suggestive thought that England
and the nineteenth century evolved a pessimism which poor Ice-
land on its ash-heap never could conceive ? William Morris was
an Icelander, not an Englishman, in his philosophy.
In this same scene, a notable deviation from the saga is the
conversation betw^een Regin and Sigurd concerning the relations
that shall be between them after the slaying of Fafnir. Here
Morris impresses the lesson of Regin's greed, taking the un-Ice-
landic device of preaching to serve his purpose :
Let it lead thee up to heaven, let it lead thee down to hell,
The deed shall be done tomorrow : thou shall have that measureless
Gold,
And devour the garnered wisdom that blessed thy realm of old,
That hath lain unspent and begrudged in the very heart of hate :
With the blood and the might of thy brother thine hunger shalt thou
sate :
And this deed shall be mine and thine ; but take heed for what fol-
loweth then !
(P. 119.)
57
In still another place has Morris departed far from the saga
story. According to the poem, "Sigurd meets each warning of
Fafnir that the gold will be the curse of its possessor with the
assurance that he will cast the gold abroad, and let none of it
cling to his fingers. The saga, however, has this very frank con-
fession : ' ' Home would I ride and lose all that wealth, if I
deemed that by the losing thereof I should never die ; but every
brave and true man will fain have his hand on wealth till that
last day.'' Here, again, we see an adaptation of the story of the
poem to modern conceptions of nobility. It remains to be said
that the ernes move Sigurd to take the gold for the gladdening of
the world, and they assure him that a son of the Volsung had
nought to fear from the Curse. The seven-times-repeated " Bind
the red rings, O Sigurd," is an admirable poem, but it does not
contain information concerning Brynhild, as do the strophes of
Reginsmdl which are the model for this lay.
Let us look at the art of Morris as it is shown in telling " How
Sigurd awoke Brynhild upon Hindfell." As in the saga, so in
the English poem, this incident has a setting most favorable to
the display of its remarkable beauties. It is a picture as pure
and sweet as it has ever entered into the mind of man to conceive.
The conception belongs to the poetic lore of many nations, and
children are early introduced to the story of " Sleeping Beauty."
There are some features of the Old Norse version that are especi-
ally charming, and first among them is the address of the awak-
ened Brynhild to the sun and the earth. We are told that this
maiden loved the radiant hero that here awoke her from her
age-long sleep, but not for him is her first greeting. A finer
thrill moves her than love for a man, and in Morris's poem, this
feeling finds singularly beautiful expression :
All hail O Day and thy Sons, and thy kin of the coloured things !
Hail, following Night, and thy Daughter that leadeth thy wavering
wings !
Look down with unangry eyes on us today alive.
And give us the hearts victorious, and the gain for which we strive !
All hail, ye Lords of God-home, and ye Queens of the House of Gold !
Hail thou dear Earth that bearest, and thou Wealth of field and fold !
Give us, your noble children, the glory of wisdom and speech.
And the hearts and the hands of healing, and the mouths and hands
that teach !
(P. 140.)
58
In order to see just what the art of Morris has done for this poem,
let us compare this address with the rendering of the Sigrdri-
fumdl, which tell the same story and which Morris and Magnus-
son have incorporated into their translation of the Volsunga
Saga. The verses are not in the original saga :
Hail to the day come back !
Hail, sons of the daylight !
Hail to thee, dark night, and thy daughter !
Look with kind eyes a-down.
On us sitting here lonely,
And give unto us the gain that we long for.
Hail to the ^sir.
And the sweet Asyniur !
Hail to the fair earth fulfilled of plenty !
Fair words, wise hearts.
Would we win from you.
And healing hands while life we hold.
To get the full benefit of the comparison of the old and the
new, let us set in conjunction with these versions a severely
literal translation of the Edda strophes themselves :
Hail, O Day,
Hail, O Sons of the Day,
Hail Night and kinswoman !
With unwroth eyes
look on us here
and give to us sitting ones victory.
Hail, O Gods,
Hail, O Goddesses,
Hail, O bounteous Earth !
Speech and wisdom
give to us, the excellent twain,
and healing hands during life.
These stages in the progress of the gold from mine to mint fur-
nish their own commentary. The finished product will pass
current with the most exacting of assayers, as well as gladden
the hearts of the poor one whose hand seldom touches gold.
If the skill of the poet in this case have merited resemblance
to that of the refiner of gold, what name less than alchemy can
characterize his achievement in the rest of this scene ? From the
first words of Brynhild's life-story :
59
I am she that loveth ; I was born of the earthly folk ;
to the tender words that tell of the coming of another day •
And fresh and all abundant abode the deeds of Day,
there is a succession of beautiful scenes and glorious speeches
such as only a master of magic could have gotten out of the
original story. The Eddaic account of the Valkyr's disobedience
to All-Father, pictures a saucy and self-willed maiden. Sentence
has been pronounced upon her, and thus the story continues :
" But I said I would vow a vow against it, and marry no man
that knew fear." The Volsunga Saga gives exactly the saine
account, but the poetic version of Morris saves the maiden for
our respect and admiration. It is not effrontery, but repentance
that speaks in the voice of Brynhild here :
The thoughts of my heart overcame me, and the pride of my wisdom
and speech.
And I scorned the earth-folk's Framer, and the Lord of the world I
must teach.
In the Icelandic version, Odin makes no speech at the dooming,
but Morris puts into his mouth this magnificent address :
And he cried: "Thou hast thought in thy folly that the Gods have
friends and foes,
That they wake, and the world wends onward, that they sleep, and
the world slips back,
That they laugh, and the world's weal waxeth, that they frown and
fashion the wrack :
Thou hast cast up the curse against me ; it shall aback on thine head ;
Go back to the sons of repentance, with the children of sorrow wed !
For the Gods are great unholpen, and their grief is seldom seen,
And the wrong that they will and must be is soon as it hath not been."
(P. 141.)
Morris has here again exercised the poet's privilege of adding
to the story that w^as the pride of an entire age, in order to serve
his own the better. If he was wise in these additions, he was
no less wise in subtractions and in preservations. The saga has
a long address by Brynhild, opening with mystical advice con-
cerning the power of runes, and closing grandly with wise
words that sound like a page from the Old Testament. The
former find no place in Sigurd the Volsunga but the latter are
60
turned into mighty phrases that wonderfully preserve the spirit
of the original.
One passage more from Book II :
So they climb the burg of Hindfell, and hand in hand they fare,
Till all about and above them is nought but the sunlit air,
And there close they cling together rejoicing in their mirth ;
For far away beneath them lie the kingdoms of the earth,
And the garths of men-folk's dwellings and the streams that water
them,
And the rich and plenteous acres, and the silver ocean's hem,
And the woodland wastes and the mountains, and all that holdeth all ;
The house and the ship and the island, the loom and the mine and the
stall.
The beds of bane and healing, the crafts that slay and save.
The temple of God and the Doom-ring, the cradle and the grave.
(P. 145.)
These ten lines serve to illustrate very well one of the most re-
markable powers of Morris. Just consider for a moment the
number of details that are crowded into this picture, and then
notice how few are the strokes required to put them there. For
this rapid painting of a crowded canvas Morris is second to none
among English poets. This power to put a whole landscape or
a complex personality into a few lines is the direct outcome of
his study of Old Norse literature. Icelandic poetry is character-
ized by this quality. One has but to compare the account of the
end of the world as it is found in the last strophes of Voluspd,
or in the Prose Edda, with the similar account in Revelations to
see how much two languages may differ in this respect. It
would seem as if the short verses characteristic of Icelandic poetry
forbade lengthy descriptions. The effect must be produced by a
number of quick strokes : there is never time to go over a line
once made. A simile is never elaborated, a new one is made
when the poet wishes to insist on the figure. Take the second
strophe of the ' ' Ancient Lay of Gudrun " as an example, in the
translation by Morris and Magnusson :
Such was my Sigurd
Among the Sons of Giuki
As is the green leek
O'er the low grass waxen,
61
Or a hart high-limbed
Over hurrying deer,
Or gleed-red gold
Over grey silver.
That is the Icelandic fashion ; William Morris has caught it in
the Story of Sigurd. Matthew Arnold has not seen fit to use it
in his " Balder Dead," as these lines show :
Him the blind Hoder met, as he came up
. From the sea cityward, and knew his step ;
Nor yet could Hermod see his brother's face,
For it grew dark ; but Hermod touched his arm.
And as a spray of honeysuckle flowers
Brushes across a tired traveller's face
Who shuffles thro the deep-moistened dust.
On a May-evening, in the darkened lanes,
And starts him that he thinks a ghost went by —
So Hoder brushed by Hermod' s side.
These are noble lines, but altogether foreign to Icelandic.
Book III opens with the dream of Gudrun and Brynhild'sin-
terpretation of it. This matter is managed in accordance with
our own standards of art, and thus differs materially ^from the
saga story. In the latter a most naive procedure is adopted, for
Brynhild prophesies that Sigurd shall leave her for Gudrun,
through Grimhild's guile, that strife shall come between them,
and that Sigurd shall die and Gudrun wed Atli. The whole
later story is thus revealed. This is not a story-teller's art, but
it sets clear the Old Norse acceptance of fate's dealings. Of
course Morris' poetic action explains the dream perfectly, but the
details are not so frankly given.
" Thou shalt live and love and lose, and mingle in murder and
war," is the gist of Brynhild's message, and the whole future
history is there.
This poem has often been called an epic, and certainly there
are many epical characteristics in it. One of them is the recur-
rence of certain formulae, and in Books III and IV these are
rather more abundant than in the first two books. Thus the
sword of Sigurd is praised in the same words, again and again :
It hath not its like in the heavens nor has earth of its fellow told.
Then, there is the " cloudy hall-roof " of the Niblungs. Gudrun
62
is "the white-armed"; Grimhild is "the wisest of women";
Hogni is the " wise-heart" ; the Niblungs are " the Cloudy Peo-
ple" ; their beds are "blue-covered"; "the Godson the hang-
ings " is an expression that recurs very often, and it recalls the
fact that Morris was an artisan as well as an artist.
In the preceding books we have noted that Morris lengthened
the saga story in his poem by the introduction of speeches that
find no place in the original. In this book we see another length-
ening process, which, with that already noted, goes far to account
for the difference in bulk between the saga and the poem. Chap.
XXVI of the saga, tells in less than a thousands words how
Sigurd comes to the Giukings and is wedded to Gudrun. His
reception is told in one hundred words ; his abode with the Giuk-
ings is set forth in even fewer words ; Grimhild's plotting and
administering of the drugged drink are told in two hundred
words ; his acceptance of Gudrun's hand and her brother's alle-
giance are as tersely pictured ; kingdoms are conquered, a son
is born to Sigurd, and Grimhild plots to have Sigurd get Bryn-
hild for her son Gunnar, yet the record of it all is compressed
within one hundred and fifty words. Of course, the modern
poet can hem himself within no such narrow bounds as this. The
artistic value of these various incidents is priceless, and Morris
has lingered upon them lovingly and long. He spreads the story
over forty pages, or a thousand lines, and I avow, after a third
reading of these three sections of the poem, that I would spare
no line of them. How we love this Sigurd of the poet's paint-
ing ! And what a noble gospel he proclaims to the Giukings :
For peace I bear unto thee, and to all the kings of the earth,
Who bear the sword aright, and are crowned with the crown of worth ;
But unpeace to the lords of evil, and the battle and the death ;
And the edge of the sword to the traitor, and the flame to the slan-
derous breath :
And I would that the loving were loved, and I would that the weary
should sleep,
And that man should hearken to man, and that he that soweth should
reap. (P. 174.)
Here, by the way, is the burden of Morris's preaching in the
cause of a better society. It recurs a few pages further on in
the poem, where the Niblungs bestow praise on this new hero :
63
And they say, when the sun of summer shall come aback to the land.
It shall shine on the fields of the tiller that fears no heavy hand ;
That the sleep shall be for the plougher, and the loaf for him that
sowed.
Through every furrowed acre where the Son of Sigmund rode.
(P. 178.)
It need hardly be remarked that this Sigurd is not the saga-
man's ideal. The Icelanders never evolved such high concep-
tions of man's obligations to man, but in their ignorance they
were no worse off than their continental brethren, for these forgot
their greatest Teacher's teaching, and modern social science must
point them back to it.
Tliis Sigurd that we love becomes the Sigurd that we pity in
the drinking of a draught. Sorrow takes the place of joy in his
life, and " the soul is changed in him," so that men may say
that on this day they saw him die the first time, w^ho was to die
a second time by Guttorm's sword. Gloom spreads over all the
earth with the quenching of Sigurd's joy :
In the deedless dark he rideth, and all things he remembers save one,
And nought else hath he care to remember of all the deeds he hath
done.
Here is illustrated the essential difference between the saga-
man's art and the modern story-teller's. The Icelander must tell
his story in haste ; the deeds of men are his care, not their diva-
gations nor their psychologizings. The modern writer must
linger on every step in the story until the motive and the mean-
ing are laid bare. In the present-day version Sigurd's mental
sufferings are described at length, and our hearts are wrung at
his unmerited woes. The saga knows no such woes, and to all
appearance Sigurd's life is not unhappy to its very end. Indeed,
it appears in more than one place in Morris's poem that Sigurd
has become godlike through the hard experiences of his life.
Take this passage as an illustration :
So is Sigurd yet with the Niblungs, and he loveth Gudrun his wife.
And wendeth afield with the brethren to the days of the dooming of
life;
And nought his glory waneth, nor falleth the flood of praise :
To every man he hearkeneth, nor gainsayeth any grace,
64
And glad is the poor in the Doom-ring when he seeth his face mid the
Kings,
For the tangle straighteneth before him, and the maze of crooked
things.
But the smile is departed from him, and the laugh of Sigurd the young,
And of few words now is he waxen, and his songs are seldom sung.
Howbeit of all the sad-faced was Sigurd loved the best ;
And men say : Is the king's heart mighty beyond all hope of rest ?
Lo, how he beareth the people ! how heavy their woes are grown !
So oft were a God mid the Goth-folk, if he dwelt in the world alone.
(P. 205.)
I
Set this by the side of the saga : " This is truer," says Sigurd,
" that I loved thee better than myself, though I fell into the wiles
from whence our lives may not escape ; for whenso my own
heart and mind availed me, then I sorrowed sore that thou wert
not my wife ; but as I might I put my trouble from me, for in a
king's dwelling was I ; and withal and in spite of all I was well
content that we were all together. Well may it be, that that
shall come to pass which is foretold ; neither shall I fear the ful-
filment thereof." ( Volsunga Saga^ Chap. XXIX.) These
words are spoken to Brynhild after she has discovered what she
regards as Sigurd's treachery. His words are dictated by a
noble resignation to fate, but his very next remark shows a moral
meanness not at all in keeping with Morris's conception. Sigurd
said : " This my heart would, that thou and I should go into one
bed together ; even so wouldst thou be my wife."
There have been many griefs depicted in this poem, but surely
here are set forth the most pitiless of them all. The guile-w^on
Brynhild travels in state to the Cloudy Hall of the Niblungs, and
the whole people come out to meet her. They are astonished at
her beauty, and give her cordial greeting and welcome to her
husband's house. Proud and majestic, the marvelous woman
steps from her golden wain, and gives friendly but passionless
greeting to Gunnar as she places her hand in his. For each of
Gunnar's brothers she has a kindly word, as she has for Grim-
hild, too. She asks to see the foster-brother of whom such won-
drous tales are told, and whose name she heard from Gunnar's
lips with never a tremor — ' ' Sigurd, the Volsung, the best man
ever born." Grimhild stands between them for a time, but the
65
meeting has to come. Then Brynhild remembers, and Sigurd
sees the unveiled past : ,
Her heart ran back through the years, and yet her hps did move
With the words she spake on Hindfell, when they phghted troth of love.
His face is exceeding glorious and awful to behold ;
For of all his sorrow he knoweth and his hope smit dead and cold :
For the will of the Norns is accomplished, and outworn is Grimhild's
spell
And nought now shall blind or help him, and the tale shall be to tell.
(P. 226.)
There's the note of the whole history — the will of the Norns
and the note of a whole Northern literature, as it is of a whole
Southern literature. Man, the puppet, in the hands of Fate;
however man may think and reason and assure himself that the
dispensation of Fate is just, the supreme moment of realization
will always be a tragedy :
He hath seen the face of Brynhild, and he knows why she hath come.
And that his is the hand that hath drawn her to the Cloudy People's
home :
He knows of the net of the days, and the deeds that the Gods have bid,
And no whit of the sorrow that shall be from his wakened soul is hid.
(P. 226.)
In such an hour, what are conquests of a glorious past, what
are honors, crowns, loves, hates.'' The mind can think of little
matters only :
His heart speeds back to Hindfell, and the dawn of the wakening day ;
And the hours betwixt are as nothing, and their deeds are fallen away.
(P. 226.)
Is aught to be said to one in such a crisis, the words are weak
and commonplace. There is Brynhild's greeting to Sigurd :
If aught thy soul shall desire while yet thou livest on earth,
I pray that thou mayst win it, nor forget its might and worth.
The shattered mind of Sigurd tries to grasp the meaning of the
harmless words, and like common sounds that are so fearful in
the night, the phrases assume a terrible import :
All grief, sharp scorn, sore longing, stark death in her voice he knew.
66
Then again comes the dominant note of this story :
Gone forth is the doom of the Norns, and what shall be answer
thereto,
While the death that amendeth lingers ?
Here is a hint of the end of all — " the death that amendeth," and
from this point to the end of the story there is no gleam of hap-
piness for anyone.
Book IV brings to a majestic close this mighty history. We
have dwelt so long on the wonderful poetry of the other books
that we must refrain from further comment in this strain. As
we read these eloquent imaginings, we regret that the English
reading public have left this work through fear of its great length
or the ignorance of its existence, in the dust of half-forgotten
shelves. Gold disused is true gold none the less, and the ages to
come may be more appreciative than the present.
For the sake of rounding out this story, be it noted concerning
this Book IV, that the poet has taken liberties with the saga
story here, as elsewhere. Motives more easily understood in our
day are assigned for the deeds of dread that throng these closing
scenes. Gudrun weds King Atli at her mother's bidding, and
under the influence of a wicked potion, but neither mother nor
magic drives the memory of Sigurd from her mind. She lives to
bring destruction upon her husband's murderers, and those mur-
derers are her own flesh and blood. Through her appeals to
Atli's greed, and throtigh Knefrud's lies in the Niblung court,
the visit of her proud brothers to her pliant husband is brought
about. The saga makes Atli the arch-plotter, and the motive his
desire to possess the gold. This sentence exculpates Gudrun
from any wrong intention towards her brothers : ' ' Now the
queen wots of their conspiring, and misdoubts her that this
would mean some beguiling of her brethren." (Chap. XXXIV.)
In Chap. XXXVIII, we are told that Gudrun fights on the side
of her brothers. We see at once the superiority of the poet's
motive for a modern tragedy.
It is impressed upon the reader of an epic that the plan of its
maker does not call for fine analysis of character. The epic
poet is concerned necessarily with large considerations, and his
personages do not split hairs from the south to the southeast side.
One sign of this is seen in the epic formulae employed to charac-
67
terize the personages of the story. Such formula are in Sigurd
the Volsung in abundance, as we have noted on another page.
But there are also many departures from the epic model in this
poem. Some of these we have referred to in the remarks on
Book III, where we noted Sigurd's mental sufferings. In Book
IV we have a discrimination of character that is not epic, but
dramatic in its minuteness. In the speech and the deeds of the
Niblungs their pride and selfishness is clearly set forth, but the
individual members .of that race are distinguished by traits very
minutely drawn. Thus Hogni is the wary Niblung, and is
averse to accepting Atli's invitation :
' ' I know not, I know not, ' ' said Hogni, ' ' but an unsure bridge is the
sea,
And such would I oft were builded betwixt my foeman and me.
I know a sorrow that sleepeth, and a wakened grief I know,
And the torment of the mighty is a strong and fearful foe."
(P. 281.)
Gunnar is here distinguished as a hypocrite by w^ord and deed ;
Gudrun remembers Sigurd in her exile and schemes and plots to
make her husband Atli work her vengeance on the Niblungs ;
Atli is greedy for gold and Gudrun's task is not hard ; Knefrud
is a liar whose words are winning, and overcome the scruples of
the Niblungs. In these careful discriminations of character we
see a non-epical trait, and of necessity therefore, a non-Icelandic
trait. The sagaman was epic in his tone.
As a last appreciation of the art of William Morris as it is
displayed in this poem, we would call attention to the tremendous
battle-piece entitled " Of the Battle in Atli's Hall." It is the
climax of this marvelous poem, and in no detail is it inadequate
to its place in the work. The poet's constructive power is here
demonstrated to be of the highest order, and in the majestic
sweep of events that is here depicted, we see the poet in his
original role of maker. The sagaman's skill had not the power
to conceive this titanic drama, and the memory of his battle-
piece is quite effaced by the modern invention. In blood and fire ■
the story comes to an end with Gudrun,
The white and silent woman above the slaughter set.
As we turn from the scene and the book, that figure fades not
away. And it is fitting that the last memory of this poem
should be a picture of love and hate, inextricably bound together,
for that is the irony of Fate, and Fate was mistress of the Old
Norseman's world.
5-
Between the great works dealt with in the last two sections,
which belong together and were therefore so considered, came
the book of 1875, bearing the title Three Northern Love Stories
and Other 7 ales. It is as good a representation as Iceland can
make in the love-story class.
These tales are charmingly told in the translation of Morris
and Magnusson, the second one, " Frithiof the Bold," being a
master-piece in its kind. Men will dare much for the love of a
woman, and that is why the sagaman records love episodes at
all. Frithiof's voyage to the Orkneys in Chap. VI is a storm-
piece that vies with anything of its kind in modern literature.
It is Norse to the core, and we love the peerless young hero who
forgets not his manhood in his chagrin of defeat at love. Surely
there is fitness in these outbursts of song in moments of extreme
exultation or despair ! ' ' And he sang withal :
" Helgi it is that helpeth
The white-head billows' waxing ;
Cold time unlike the kissing
In the close of Baldur's Meadow !
So is the hate of Helgi
To that heart's love she giveth.
O would that here I held her,
Gift high above all giving ! ' '
Modern literature has lost this conventionality of the older writ-
ings, found in Hebrew as well as in Icelandic, and we think it
has lost something valuable. Morris thought so, too, for he re-
stored the interpolated song-snatches in his Romances. We are
tempted to dwell on these three love-stories, they are so fine ; but
we must leave them with the remark that they show the poet's
appreciation of the worth of a foreign literature, and his great
desire to have his countrymen share in his admiration for them.
' ' The Story of Gunnlaug the Worm-Tongue and Raven the
Skald," and " The Story of Viglund the Fair," are the other two
stories that give the title to the volume, representing the thirteenth
and fifteenth centuries, as " Frithiof" represented the fourteenth.
69
6.
With Sigurd the Volsung ended the first great Icelandic pe-
riod of Morris's worlc. More than a dozen years passed before
he returned to the field, and from 1889 until his death, in 1896,
everything he wrote bore proofs of his abiding interest in and
affection for the ancient literature. The remarkable series of
romances, The House of the Wolfings (1889), The Roots of the
Mountains (1890), The Story of the Glittering Plain (1891),
The Wood Beyond the World (i8g 5), The Well at the World's
End (1896) and The Sundering Flood (posthumous), are none
of them distinctively Old Norse in geography or in story, but
they all have the flavor of the saga-translations, and are all the
better for it. They are as original and as beautiful as the poet's
tapestries and furniture, and if they did not provoke imitation as
did the tapestries and furniture, it was not because they were not
worth imitating : more than likely there were no imitators equal
to the task. In these romances we have men and women with
the characteristics of an olden time that are most worthy of con-
servation in the present time. The ideals of womanfolk and
manfolk in The House of the Wolfings and The Roots of the
Mountains^ for instance, are such as an Englishman might well
be proud to have in his remote ancestry. Hall-Sun, Wood-
Sun, Sunbeam, and Bowmay are wholesome women to meet
in a story, and Thiodolf, Gold-mane, Iron-face and Hallward
are every inch men for book-use or to commune with every
day. Weaklings, too, abide in these stories, and Penny-thumb
and Rusty and Fiddle and Wood-grey lend humanity to the com-
pany.
The two romances last mentioned are so steeped in the atmos-
phere of the sagas, that what with folk-motes and shut-beds, and
byres, and man-quellers, and handsels and speech-friends, we
seem to lose ourselves in yet another version of a northern tale.
Morris retains the old idiom that he invented for his translations,
and keeps the tyro thumbing his dictionary, but the charm is in-
creased by the archaisms. As one seeks the words in the dic-
tionary, one learns that Chaucer, Spenser and the Ballads were
the wells from which he drew these rare words, and that his em-
ployment of them is only another phase of his love for the old
far-off things. It is true that the language of Morris is not of
70
any one stadium of English, but it is a poet's privilege to draw
upon all history for his words as well as for his allusions, and the
revivals in question are of worthy words pushed aside by the press
of newer, but not necessarily better forms.
These works are the kind that show the influence of Old Norse
literature as spiritual rather than substantial. The stories are not
drawn from the older literature, nor are the settings patterned
after it ; but the impulses that swayed men and women in the
sagaman's tale, and the motives that uplifted them, are found
here. We cannot think that the English people will always be
unmindful of the great debt that they owe to the Muse of the
North.
7-
In 1 89 1, Morris engaged in a literary enterprise that set the
fashion for similar enterprises in succeeding years. With Eirikr
Magnusson he undertook the making of The Saga Library^
' ' addressed to the whole reading public, and not only to students
of Scandinavian history, folk-lore and language." ^ With Ber-
nard Quaritch's imprint on the title pages, these volumes to the
number of five were issued in exceptional type and form. The
munificence of the publisher was equalled by the skill of the
translators, and in their versions of '• Howard, the Halt," " The
Banded Men," and" Hen Thorir " (in Vol. I, dated 1891),
" The Ere-Dwellers " (in Vol. II, dated 1892) and Heimskringla
(in Vols. Ill, IV and V, dated 1893-4-5), '^^e definitive transla-
tions of sterling sagas were given. As was the case with their
Grettis Saga, the works rise to the dignity of masterpieces, and
had we no other legacy from Morris' wealth of Icelandic schol-
arship, these translations were precious enough to keep us grate-
ful through many generations.
One more contribution to English literature hailing from the
North, and we have done with William Morris's splendid gifts.
The volume of 189 1, entitled Poems by the Way, contains sev-
eral pieces that must be reckoned with. The vividest recollec-
tions of Icelandic materials here made use of are the poems
" Iceland First Seen," and " To the Muses of the North." No
'Preface to Vol. I, p. v.
71
reader of the poet's biography can forget the remarkable jour-
ney that Morris made through Iceland, nor how he prepared
for that journey with all the care and love of a pilgrim bound
for a shrine of his deepest devotion. Every foot of ground was
visited that had been hallowed by the noble souls and inspiring
deeds of the past, and that pilgrimage warmed him to loving
literarj^ creation through the remainder of his life. The last two
stanzas of the first of the poems just mentioned show what a
strong hold the forsaken island had upon his affections, and go
far to explain the success of his Icelandic work :
O Queen of the grief without knowledge,
of the courage thai may not avail,
Of the longing that may not attain,
of the love that shall never forget.
More joy than the gladness of laughter
thy voice hath amidst of its wail :
More hope than of pleasure fulfilled
amidst of thy blindness is set ;
More glorious than gaining of all
thine unfaltering hand that shall fail :
For what is the mark on thy brow
but the brand that thy Brynhild doth bear ?
Lone once, and loved and undone
by a love that no ages outwear.
Ah ! when thy Balder comes back,
and bears from the heart of the Sun
Peace and the healing of pain,
and the wisdom that waiteth no inore ;
And the lilies are laid on thy brow
'mid the crown of the deeds thou hast done ;
And the roses spring up by thy feet
that the rocks of the wilderness wore.
Ah ! when thy Balder comes back
and we gather the gains he hath won.
Shall we not linger a little
to talk of thy sweetness of old.
Yea, turn back awhile to thy travail
whence the Gods stood aloof to behold ?
In several other poems in this volume he recurs to the practice
of his romances, Scandinavianizes where the tendency of other
72
poets would be to meditevalize. "Of the Wooing of Hallbiorn
the Strong," and " The Raven and the King's Daughter "are
examples. Here we have ballads like those that Coleridge and
Keats conceived on occasion, full of the beauty that lends itself
so kindly to painted-glass decoration ; clustered spear-shafts,
crested helms and curling banners, and everywhere lily hands
combing yellow hair or broidering silken standards. But the
names strike a strange note in these songs of Morris, and the ac-
companiments are very different from the mediaeval kind :
Come ye carles of the south country,
Now shall we go our kin to see !
For the lambs are bleating in the south,
And the salmon swims towards Olfus mouth.
Girth and graithe and gather your gear !
And ho for the other Whitewater ! '
The introduction of the homely arts of bread-winning dis-
tinguishes the romance of Scandinavia from the romance of
Southern Europe, and here Morris struck into a new field for
poetry. Wherever we turn to note the effects of Icelandic tra-
dition, we find this presence of daily toil, always associated with
dignity, never apologized for. The connection between Morris'
art and Morris' socialism is not hard to explain.
No commentary can equal Morris' own poem, " To the Muse
of the North," in setting forth the charm that drew him to the
literature of Iceland :
O Muse that swayest the sad Northern Song,
Thy right hand full of smiting and of wrong,
Thy left hand holding pity ; and thy breast
Heaving with hope of that so certain rest :
Thou, with the grey eyes kind and unafraid.
The soft lips trembling not, though they have said
The doom of the World and those that dwell therein.
The lips that smile not though thy children win
The fated Love that draws the fated Death.
O, borne adown the fresh stream of thy breath.
Let some word reach my ears and touch my heart,
That, if it may be, Imay have a part
In that great sorrow of thy children dead
That vexed the brow, and bowed adown the head,
1 The Wooing of Hallbiorn.
73
Whitened the hair, made hfe a wondrous dream,
And death the mtirmur of a restful stream.
But left no stain upon those souls of thine
Whose greatness through the tangled world doth shine.
O Mother, and Love and Sister all in one,
Come thou ; for sure I am enough alone
That thou thine arms about my heart shouldst throw.
And wrap me in the grief of long ago.
IV.
IN THE LATTER DAYS.
Echoes of Iceland in Later Poets.
After William Morris the northern strain that we have been
listening for in the English poets seems feeble and not worth
noting. Nevertheless, it must be remarked that in the harp of a
thousand strings that wakes to music under the bard's hands,
there is a sweep which thrills to the ancient traditions of the
Northland. Now and then the poet reaches for these strings,
and gladdens us with some reminiscence of
old, unhappy, far-ofif things
And battles long ago.
As had already been intimated, the table of contents in a present-
day volume of poetry is very apt to show an Old Norse title.
Thus Robert Lord Lytton's Poems Historical and Character-
istic (London, 1877) reveals among the poems on European,
Oriental, classic and mediaeval subjects, "The Death of Earl
Hacon," a strong piece inspired by an incident in Heimskringla .
In Robert Buchanan's multifarious versifying occurs this title :
"Balder the Beautiful, A Song of Divine Death," but only the
title is Old Norse ; nothing in the poem suggests that origin ex-
cept a notion or two of the end of all things. " Hakon" is the
title of a short virile piece more nearly of the Norse spirit.
Sidney Dobell's drama Balder has only the title to suggest the
Icelandic, bvit Gerald Massey has the true ring in a number of
lyrics, with themes drawn from the records of Norway's relations
with England. In "The Norseman" there is a trumpet strain
that recalls the best of the border-ballads ; there is also a truthful-
ness of portraiture that argues a poet's intuition in Gerald Mas-
sey, if not an acquaintance with the sagas :
The Norseman's King must stand up tall.
If he would be head over all ;
Mainmast of Battle ! when the plain
Is miry-red with bloody rain !
74
75
And grip his weapon for"the fight,
Until his knuckles grin tooth-white,
The banner-staff he bears is best
If double handful for the rest :
When "follow me" cries the Norseman.
He knows the gentler side of Old Norse character, too, a side
which, as we have seen, was not suspected till Carlyle came :
He hides at heart of his rough life,
^ world of sweetness for the Wife ;
From his rude breast a Babe may press
Soft milk of human tenderness, —
Make his eyes water, his heart dance.
And sunrise in his countenance :
In merriest mood his ale he quaffs
By firelight, and with jolly heart laughs
The blithe, great-hearted Norseman.
The poem " Old King Hake," is as strikingly true in char-
acterization as the preceding. In half a dozen strophes Massey
has told a whole saga, and has found time, too, to describe " an
iron hero of Norse mould." How miserable a personage is the
ItaHan that flits through Browning's pages when contrasted with
this hero :
When angry, out the blood would start
With old King Hake ;
Not sneak in dark caves of the heart,
Where curls the snake.
And secret Murder's hiss is heard
Ere the deed be done :
He wove no web of wile and word ;
He bore with none.
When sharp within its sheath asleep
Lay his good sword,
He held it royal work to keep
His kingly word.
A man of valour, bloody and wild.
In Viking need ;
And yet of firelight feeling mild
As honey-mead.
Another poem, "The Banner-Bearer of King Olaf," pictures
the strong fighter in a death he rejoiced to die. It is a good
76
poem of the class that nerves men to die for the flag, and it has
the Old Norse spirit. These poems are all from Massey's volume
My Lyrical Life {'L.owA.ci-a.. 1889).
A glance at the other poems in Gerald Massey's volumes show^s
that like Morris, and like Kingsley, and like Carlyle, the poet
w^as a workman eager to do for the workman. Is it not sugges-
tive that these men found themselves drawn to Old Norse char-
acter and life? The Icelandic republic cherished character as
the highest quality of citizenship, and put few or no social ob-
stacles in the way of its achievement. The literature inspired by
that life reveals a fellowship among the members of that republic
that is tlie envy of social reformers of the present day. Morris
makes one of the personages in The Story of the Glittering
Plain (Chap. I) say these words : "And as for Lord, I knew
not this word, for here dwell we the Sons of the Raven in
good fellowship, with our wives that we have wedded, and
our mothers who have borne us, and our sisters who serve us."
Almost may this description serve for Iceland in its golden age,
and so it is no wonder that the socialist, the priest, and the
philosopher of our own disjointed times go back to the sagas for
ideals to serve their countrymen.
We have no other poets to mention by name in connection
with this Old Norse influence, although doubtless a search
through the countless volumes that the presses drop into a cold
and uncaring world would reveal other poems with Scandinavian
themes. We close this section of our investigation with the re-
mark already made, that, in the tables of titles in volumes of
contemporary verse, acknowledgment to Old Norse poetry and
prose are not the rarity they once were, and in poems of any
kind allusions to the same sources are very common.
Recent Translations.
We have already noted the beginning of serial publications of
saga translations, namely, Morris and Magnusson's Saga Library
which v^'as stopped by the death of Morris when the fifth volume
had been completed. By the last decade of the nineteenth cen-
tury Icelandic had become one of the languages that an ordinary
scholar might boast, and in consequence the list of translations
began to lengthen very fast. Several English publishers with
77
scholarly instincts were attracted to this field, and so the reading
public ma}' get at the sagas that were so long the exclusive pos-
session of learned professors. The Northern Library, pub-
lished by David Nutt, of London, already contains four volumes
and more are promised : The Saga of King Olaf Tryggwason,
by J. Sephton, appeared in 1895 ; The Tale of Thrond of Gate
{JF'cereyinga Saga), by F. York Powell, in 1896; Hamlet in
Iceland (Amdales Saga), by Israel Gollancz, in 1898; The
Saga of King Sverri of Norway (^Sverris Saga), by J. Seph-
ton, in 1899. If we cannot give to these the praise of being
great literature though translations, we can at least foresee that
this process of turning all the readable sagas into English will
quicken adaptations and increase the stock of allusions in modern
writings.
An example of the publishers' feeling that the reading public
will find an interest in the saga itself, is the translation of Laxdcela
Saga by Muriel A. C. Press (London, 1899, J- M- Dent &
Co.) . William Morris made this saga known to readers of Eng-
lish poetry by his magnificent " Lovers of Gudrun.'' Mrs. Press
lets us see the story in its original form. Perhaps this transla-
tion will appeal as widely as any to those who read, and we maj-
note the differences between this form of writing and that to
which the modern times are accustomed.
This saga is a story, but it is not like the work of fiction, nor
like the sketch of history which, appeals to our interest to-day.
It has not the unity of purpose which marks the novel, nor the
broad outlook over events which characterizes the history. Plot-
ting is abundant, but plot in the technical sense there is none.
Events are recorded in chronological order, but there is no march
of those events to a denouement. While it would be wrong to
say that there is no one hero in a saga, it would be more correct
to say that that hero's name is legion. From generation to gen-
eration a saga-history wends its way, each period dominated by
a great hero. The annals of a family edited for purposes of oral
recitation, or the life of the principal member of that family
with an introduction dealing with the great deeds of as many of
his ancestors as he would be proud to own — this seems to be
what a saga was — Laxdcela, Grettla, Njala.
This form permits many sterling literary qualities. Move-
78
ment is the most marked characteristic. This was essential to a
spoken story, and the sharpest impression left in the mind of an
English reader is that of relentless activity. Thus he finds it
necessary to keep the bearings of the story by consulting the list
of dramatis -personce and the map, both indispensable accom-
paniments of a saga-translation. The chapter headings make
this list, and a glance at them for Laxdcela reveals a procession
of notable personages — Ketill, Unn, Hoskuld, Olaf the Peacock,
Kiartan, Gudrun, Bolli, Thorgills, Thorkell, Thorleik, Bolli
Bollison and Snorri. Each of these is, in turn, the center of
action, and only Gudrun keeps prominent for any length of time.
Character-portraiture, ever a remarkable achievement in litera-
ture, is excellently done in the sagas. There was a necessity for
this ; so many personages crowded the stage that, if they were
not to be mere puppets, they would have to be carefully discrim-
inated. That they were so a perusal of any saga will prove.
In a novel love is almost indispensable ; in a saga other forces
are the impelling motives. Love-making gets the novelist's ten-
derest interest and solicitude, but it receives little attention from
the sagaman. Wooing under the Arctic Circle was a methodi-
cal bargaining, and there was little room for sentiment. When
Thorvald asked for Osvif's daughter Gudrun, the father " said
that against the match it would tell that he and Gudrun were not
of equal standing. Thorvald spoke gently and said he was woo-
ing a wife, not money. After that Gudrun was betrothed to
Thorvald. . . . He should also bring her jewels, so that no
woman of equal wealth should have better to show. . . . Gud-
run was not asked about it and took it much to heart, yet things
went on quietly." (Chap. XXXIV of Laxdcela.') In Iceland,
as elsewhere, love was a source of discord, and for that reason
love is always present in the saga. It is not the tender passion
there, silvered with moonlight and attended by song. The saga
is a man's tale.
The translation just referred to is in The Temple Classics, pub-
lished by J. M. Dent & Co., London, 1899, ^"^^ edited by Israel
Gollancz. The editor promises (p. 273) other sagas in this
form, if Mrs. Press's work prove successful. He speaks of
Njala and Volsunga as imminent. It is to be hoped that the
intention is to give the Dasent and the Morris versions, for they
cannot be excelled.
PR 129.N8°N82 ""'™™"'"-"'™'''
The influence of old Norse literature up
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